If the Belgian colonial authorities could divorce themselves from rubber and concentrate on cocoa they might yet turn the Congo wilderness into a garden. A few enterprising Belgians have already seen possibilities in the cocoa bean. Its cultivation is at present undertaken by the Belgian Government, the Roman Catholic Missions, and by a few small companies. The principal area is that of the Mayumbe, a compact territory between the Belgian Congo and the Portuguese river, the Chiloango; there are other plantations a thousand miles from the mouth of the Congo on the banks of the Aruwimi and also of the main Congo, but these latter are characterized by such neglect that no one regards them seriously. It is difficult to imagine a tract of country more ideally suited to the cultivation of cocoa than that of Mayumbe. The hills and valleys abound in water-courses, the soil is good and the climate reminds the traveller very much of the Gold Coast territories. Some of the plantations run for miles along winding valleys, but the great trouble with Mayumbe is that perpetual nightmare—common to the whole of West Africa—scarcity of labour! Within three days’ steam of the Congo, the British colony of the Gold Coast has solved the question of labour, has started an industry which gives the native producer a return of over a million and a half sterling per annum, has provided the European consumer with a great cocoa area which twenty-five years ago produced little beyond internecine warfare and jujus, and yet the Belgian Government has never even given a practical consideration to this unique example of colonial expansion which could so easily be applied to the Congo. Rubber and cotton have but a small future in the Congo. Sisal, gold and copper have a possibility, but cocoa, the products of the palm tree, and any other vegetable oils, give promise of a real future, provided cheap transport and sound statesmanship are forthcoming. An oppressive sense of hopelessness affects the traveller in the Congo as he speeds up and down those mighty rivers, across the numerous lakes, or tramps through the silent forests. He sees the possibilities of that land, the earth he treads gives forth an intoxicating odour of fertility. The tribes amongst whom he lives and moves are nature’s children and the little incidents of daily travel impress him with the fact that, given a chance, those sturdy bodies and stout limbs could turn Congoland into a paradise of affluence and luxury. Then, as he muses on these things and dreams of ideal homes and villages, and tropical plantations pouring forth exchange values of oil and cocoa for cotton goods and hardware, the practical mind, like Newton’s apple, comes down to earth again and weighs actualities and asks the pertinent question—“Can Belgium do it?”