A wonderfully encouraging evidence to my mind that the labor and thoughtfulness of good men in behalf of Africa is not in vain may be found in the vast army of carriers now employed in the transport of European goods to Stanley Pool, past the cataract region. Ocean steamers ascend the Lower Congo for over a hundred miles, and discharge their miscellaneous cargoes at Mataddi. The loads for transport overland are of sixty and seventy pounds weight. As they are discharged by the ships, they are stacked in warehouses until the human burden-bearers demand their freight. These apply in companies from ten to two hundred strong, under their respective headmen. The price for carrying a man’s load from Mataddi to the Pool is a sovereign’s worth of barter stuffs, according to each carrier’s personal selection. The distance of portage between the two points is about 230 miles, and is performed in between fifteen and twenty days. Though a trying work for natives unaccustomed to it, the Bakongo, who have been carriers for generations, handle their burdens with ease. Travellers passing up and down the road might expect to see a track travelled by so many thousands marked by skeletons and littered with human bones. I have never seen any such sinister objects along the route, nor have I ever heard of any having been met with by later travellers. The way-bill, with lists of the loads intrusted with the caravan, is given to the headman, and all further care of them on the part of the consigners and consignees ceases, until the loads arrive at their destination, and are checked by the receiving officer, who then hands the signed receipt which entitles the caravan to the stipulated payment. Frequently there are burdens of baggage, ivory, rubber, etc., awaiting transport down river, in which case they are re-engaged at the same rates for Mataddi, and both checks are cashed at the main depot. Within less than six weeks each carrier has gained two sovereign’s worth of trade goods, which he conveys to his home for the benefit of his family, or to store up until he possesses sufficient means to engage in trade independently, or purchase some property he has long desired. [Illustration: A SLAVER] In 1884, when I left the Congo, the total number of carriers thus employed did not exceed 300. But such has been the rapid progress of events, and the favor with which the carrier profession has been regarded by the natives, that the total number of carriers furnished by an area of not more than 30,000 square miles is now about 75,000. Yet this immense army is wholly insufficient to transport the vast quantity of material discharged every month from the ships.