In the middle Congo a system is rapidly extending which violates every moral code in that it is none other than a wholesale prostitution. Under this custom, known locally as that of the “Basamba,” a man hires out a proportion of his wives on a monthly or yearly agreement. The basis is the principle of absolute ownership; a weekly or a monthly “hire” in cash, or its equivalent, is paid, and all the offspring handed over to the husband and owner. Thus the owner, or husband, obtains first a financial return for the hire of his surplus wives, and secondly he claims the offspring. In the event of males, they become domestic slaves, with which the chief may satisfy administrative and other demands for labour; while in the case of girls the chief possesses a further source of revenue either by hiring them out to “temporary husbands,” or by purchasing other and older women for the same purpose. This method of increasing the number of wives and slaves is by no means limited to the middle Congo, but in no other part of West Africa were we able to find it carried on so extensively. In those regions it is quite common to find men with ten wives hired out in the different villages, and a few cases exist of men who now carry on their trade with no less than fifty, and even one hundred, such surplus wives! [Illustration: A CONGO CHIEF WITH SOME OF HIS WIVES AND “BASAMBA” CONCUBINES.] There are other means of obtaining domestic slaves. Many of them are, of course, “inherited,” and not a few are passed over as part dowry with a wife; others are taken for debt and some are captured in tribal warfare. The relation between contract labour and domestic slavery is more intimate than appears on the surface. In West African practice an employer desiring a given number of labourers invites or “calls” the chief whom he informs of his requirements; if a merchant, he generally accompanies his request for boys with a gift; if a Government official, the demand more often than not is accompanied by a threat. At a later date the chief returns with the required number of labourers. If asked whether they are willing to work, they generally assent, for they fear to oppose their chief who, even if European prestige were not behind him, still possesses all the power of native law and customs—to say nothing of the awe-inspiring fetish.