e foot of a hill of red soil. It is a town of
scattered buildings made of wood and sheet-iron plates, sent out in
crates, and held together with screws. To Boma nature has been
considerate. She has contributed many trees, two or three long
avenues of palms, and in the many gardens caused flowers to blossom
and flourish. In the report of the "Commission of Enquiry" which
Leopold was forced to send out in 1904 to investigate the
atrocities, and each member of which, for his four months' work,
received $20,000, Boma is described as possessing "the daintiness
and _chic_ of a European watering-place."

Boma really is like a seaport of one of the Central American republics.
It has a temporary sufficient-to-the-day-for-to-morrow-we-die air.
It looks like a military post that at any moment might be abandoned.
To remove this impression the State has certain exhibits which seem
to point to a stable and good government. There is a well-conducted
hospital and clean, well-built barracks; for the amusement of the
black soldiers even a theatre, and for the higher officials
attractive bungalows, a bandstand, where twice a week a negro band
plays by ear, and plays exceedingly well. There is even a
lawn-tennis court, where the infrequent visitor to the Congo is
welcomed, and, by the courteous Mr. Vandamme, who plays tennis as
well as he does every thing else, entertained. Boma is the shop
window of Leopold's big store. The good features of Boma are like
those attractive articles one sometimes sees in a shop window, but
which in the shop one fails to find--at least, I did not find them
in the shop. Outside of Boma I looked in vain for a school
conducted by the State, like the one at Boma, such as those the
United States Government gave by the hundred to the Philippines. I
found not one. And I looked for such a hospital as the one I saw at
Boma, such as our government has placed for its employes along, and
at both ends of, the Isthmus of Panama, and, except for the one at
Leopoldville, I saw none.

In spite of the fact that Boma is a "European watering-place," all
the servants of the State with whom I talked wanted to get away from
it, especially those who already had served in the interior. To
appreciate what Boma lacks one has only to visit the neighboring
seaports on the same coast; the English towns of Sierra Leone and
Calabar, the French town of Libreville in the French Congo, the
German seaport Duala in the Cameroons, but especial