industry in palm oil is carried on and Dakar is also an important
military centre. Several of the officers however, were engaged in the
peaceful pursuit of fishing at the end of the breakwater when we
arrived.

At Dakar, Commandant and Madame Sillye come on board. The former has
served for ten years in the Congo and is now taking out ten horses
purchased in Senegambia, from which he hopes to breed. They are a fine
looking set, very quiet and well behaved, and take up their quarters
opposite the camels without creating any disturbance. We have now quite
a menagerie on board. Besides the camels and horses, there are pigeons
to be trained as carriers, guinea pigs with which the doctors
investigating the terrible disease the Sleeping Sickness, will
experiment and several dogs belonging to the passengers. Various kinds
of rubber and other living plants also occupy an appreciable part of the
promenade deck. Passengers and cargo indeed, are strong evidence of the
earnest way in which the Congo is being developed.

It is necessary now to turn from the actual visual facts and to study
the statements of others. While doing so however, we must bear in mind
the main outlines of the history of the Congo Free State. The opening up
of the Congo was entirely due to the initiative of King Leopold of
Belgium aided by the explorations of the late Sir H.M. Stanley. In 1878,
after Stanley's first descent of the Congo, a society of philanthropists
was formed called the _Comité d'études du Haut-Congo_ but this was
changed in 1882 to the _Association Internationale du Congo_. Stanley
and a French officer, M. de Brazza, then both worked up from the coast
at the same time and the former reached Lake Leopold on June 1st 1882,
while the latter concluded treaties with the Chiefs on the north bank of
the river and founded the French Congo.