e behind the town. A woman conducts us into the
ring and shows us the stables in which the infuriated beasts are kept
before they are asked to shed their blood for the idle amusement of the
spectators. On the walls are many names which look like British, and the
guide is quite astonished when we refuse to add ours to their number.

Commandant Arnold here takes on board six camels, for it is hoped these
ships of the desert will also sail equally well in the forest. The
experiment is at any rate not expensive, for they only cost L16 each and
will carry several hundred pounds weight of baggage.

From time to time the Congo Government has been charged with forcing the
natives to work against their will and with ill-treating them, and it
has also been alleged that the native soldiers committed many atrocities
during the wars against the revolting tribes. Many of these charges have
been collected and published in _Civilisation in Congoland_ written by
Mr. H.R. Fox-Bourne, the Secretary of the Aborigines Protection Society.
The author has not travelled in the country himself, but relies chiefly
upon the evidence of the late Mr. Edward Glave, at one time an official
of the Congo International Association, and of the late Mr. Sjoeblom who
was a Swedish Missionary in the Congo. The book is not cheerful reading,
for indeed it is chiefly a record of crimes which have been committed in
the past.

It has been frequently stated that acting under the orders, or at least
with the connivance of the agents of the Congo State and those of the
Commercial Companies in the country, the native police or sentries have
punished in a most barbarous manner all those natives who refused to
work. It is alleged indeed, that these sentries have actually cut off
the hands of those who did not collect the rubber or food-stuff demanded
by the agents. To even read of such sickening horrors is terrible, and I
was therefore much relieved to find that none of the State officials on
board had ever seen natives maimed in that or any other manner by the
soldiers of the State. There seems however, to be no doubt that the
native chiefs in the past mutilated both the living and dead as
punishment for crime. Mgr. Derikx told me that he had heard of a case
where a chief had ordered that the hand of his own son should be cut off
because he had committed adultery with one of his numerous wives.

We arrived at Dakar, the capital of the French colony of Senegambia, at