Next day we arrive at Kwamouth and after taking some cargo from the Kasai on board move on to a large Wood Post. It is not a very interesting or lively occupation watching people cut wood in the forest and stack it on the beach, and these Posts are sometimes used as places of punishment for refractory Europeans, whom it is thought desirable to isolate for a time. The strict paternal system is carried out throughout the State and methods of punishment are adopted which are rarely if ever found elsewhere. For minor offences the Europeans are fined by stopping their pay for a certain number of days and sometimes a man is revocated, which means he is sent home without being paid for the six months or year previously. In this way men who drink hard when they have the opportunity, who are habitually insubordinate, or who are undesirable, are weeded out rapidly. Penal offences are of course tried in the Courts and punished with imprisonment. It is indeed curious after travelling in America and our colonies, to find, sturdy, rough, independent characters behaving with extraordinary meekness and docility. Drunken brawls and promiscuous revolver shooting are unknown in the Congo, for the simple reason, that it is impossible up country to procure drink. There are no drink shanties or gambling dens and indeed no amusements of any kind. Men work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., have their dinner and go to bed. Very little news penetrates from the outside world and conversation is therefore, limited to the immediate affairs of the individuals concerned. Small matters thus appear to be far more important than they really are and the story of any little adventure soon becomes magnified out of all recognition. This, perhaps, accounts also for some of the absurd stories of atrocities. On the last day of the year we reach Leopoldville and are comfortably installed in the Inspector's house. A kind of fete is held in the evening and a procession passes with lanterns on poles, but there is very little singing or noise of any kind and the whole affair is rather ghostly.