BY THE REV. W. HOLMAN BENTLEY Of the Baptist Mission With an Introduction BY THE REV. GEORGE GRENFELL Explorer of the Upper Congo LONDON THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY 56, Paternoster Row; 65, St. Paul’s Churchyard; and 164, Piccadilly....

Although only four years have elapsed since my colleague penned the accompanying chapters, yet events have followed each other so fast that another short chapter seems to be needed to bring them up to date. During this brief interval, our knowledge of the geography of the country and the distribution of its waterways has been considerably extended; important political events have transpired on both the eastern and western boundaries of the Congo Free State; commerce has seriously undertaken the

In 1484 Diogo Cam, a Portuguese navigator, first sighted the mouth of the Congo River. Four centuries have since elapsed, and only now have we the definite knowledge of the course of that mighty flood. Seven years after the discovery of the river, an embassy was sent to the capital of the Congo country, known as San Salvador; Roman Catholic missionaries followed, who in time penetrated some 250 miles into the interior. They made, however, San Salvador their head-quarters and cathedral city, but

Roughly we may describe the Basin of the Congo as extending from the 5th degree of North, to the 12th degree of South, latitude, and from the hills skirting the coast of the Atlantic Ocean to 31st or 32nd degree of East longitude. Along what is known as the South-West Coast of Africa, from the Gulf of Biafra southwards, stretches a ridge of hill country. It commences about fifty to seventy miles inland, and is about 300 miles in width. In some parts it attains an elevation of 5,000 or more feet,

The vegetation is very varied in the rock-strewn sides of the ravines, in the granitic and quartzose regions it is very bare and weak. But where the plateau level has been less disturbed, the thick maxinde grass (x = sh) shows the richness of the soil; while the carefully tended farms near the towns, beautiful with the rich green of the ground-nut, thickly tangled with sweet-potatoes, or jungled with cassava bushes, show what can be done with the soil, by clearing and a little scratching with th

Perhaps the home life of the Congo folk may be best depicted if some familiar scenes are described. While engaged in the transport service of the mission, I was sitting quietly in my tent in Sadi Kiandunga’s town, when without the least warning a volley was fired at less than a hundred yards from my little camp. The men shouted, the women screamed, the wildest commotion ensued. Was it an attack upon the town? What had happened? As a man ran past the tent, I inquired the cause. ‘Oh, nothing,’ he

There is nothing that can be said to take the place of a religion throughout the whole region of the Congo. There is no idolatry, no system of worship; nothing but a vague superstition, a groping in the dark, the deepest, saddest ignorance, without a hope of light. The people have the name of God, but know nothing further about Him. The idea is not, however, of an evil being, or they would wish to propitiate him. A mild and gentle chief gets little respect or honour. A man who is hard and stern,

Cannibalism is not met with on the Congo until we ascend almost to Stanley Pool. The first tribe of the Bateke—the Alali—on the north bank, are said to eat human flesh sometimes, but only those who have been killed for witchcraft. The Amfuninga, or Amfunu, the next tribe of Bateke, are also credited with the same vice. It is only a report; we have no evidence of the fact. From Bolobo (2° South lat.) upwards it is known to be a custom. White men have had to witness the cutting up of victims, bein

Until the Missionary Explorations of Dr. Livingstone had given us the knowledge of the interior of Africa, nothing could be done towards the evangelisation of its teeming populations; all effort was confined to the coast. The Church Missionary Society were carrying on their work at Mombasa, commenced in 1844 by Dr. Krapf, and after the early decease of Bishop Mackenzie, of the Universities Mission, Zanzibar became the seat of the Bishop of Central Africa. The whole burden of the work rested on D

Now as to the Congo River, and the two Protestant missions established there. When the missions had been established on the great lakes, Mr. Arthington, of Leeds, wrote to the Committee of the Baptist Missionary Society, offering them £1,000 if they would undertake mission-work in the Congo country, and in districts east of Angola, where there had been Roman Catholic missions in time long past. The Society accepted the offer, and sent instructions to two missionaries at the Cameroons to prepare