but point out that they were merely obeying orders, and after one
has seen that even at the capital of Boma all the conditions of
slavery exist, one is assured that in the jungle, away from the
sight of men, all things are possible. Merchants, missionaries, and
officials even in Leopold's service told me that if one could spare
a year and a half, or a year, to the work in the hinterland he would
be an eye-witness of as cruel treatment of the natives as any that
has gone before, and if I can trust myself to weigh testimony and
can believe my eyes and ears I have reason to know that what they
say is true. I am convinced that to-day a man, who feels that a year
and a half is little enough to give to the aid of twenty millions of
human beings, can accomplish in the Congo as great and good work as
that of the Abolitionists.

Three years ago atrocities here were open and above-board. For
instance. In the opinion of the State the soldiers, in killing game
for food, wasted the State cartridges, and in consequence the
soldiers, to show their officers that they did not expend the
cartridges extravagantly on antelope and wild boar, for each empty
cartridge brought in a human hand, the hand of a man, woman, or
child. These hands, drying in the sun, could be seen at the posts
along the river. They are no longer in evidence. Neither is the
flower-bed of Lieutenant Dom, which was bordered with human skulls.
A quaint conceit.

The man to blame for the atrocities, for each separate atrocity, is
Leopold. Had he shaken his head they would have ceased. When the hue
and cry in Europe grew too hot for him and he held up his hand they
did cease. At least along the main waterways. Years before he could
have stopped them. But these were the seven fallow years, when