The proportion of deaths has become very low among the blacks of the Public Force and among the labourers. This is due in a great degree to the improved conditions under which our men live. The lodgment is well aired and neatly kept. The food is varied as much as possible, and its careful preparation is provided for. The camps of the soldiers of the Public Force are well kept up. Barracks constructed in stone with cemented floors serve in the Lower Congo as lodgment for our troops. The black officers have their habitation separate from that of their men. In the stations on the upper river these prescripts are also well followed. At Boma the creation of a working city, constructed of well-chosen materials, is in progress. It is interesting to quote with regard to the constant and progressive improvement in the existence of the natives the following paragraphs from the report of Mr. Casement, His Britannic Majesty’s Consul: “Then (in 1887) I had visited most of the places I now revisited, and I was thus able to institute a comparison between a state of affairs I had myself seen when the natives lived their own savage lives in anarchic and disorderly communities, uncontrolled by Europeans, and that created by more than a decade of very energetic European intervention. That very much of this intervention has been called for, no one who formerly knew the Upper Congo could doubt, and there are to-day widespread proofs of the great energy displayed by Belgian officials in introducing their methods of rule over one of the most savage regions of Africa. “Admirably built and admirably kept stations greet the traveller at many points. “The Government station of Leopoldville numbers, I was informed by its chief, some 130 Europeans, and probably 300 native Government workmen, who all dwell in well-ordered lines of either very well-built European houses, or, for the native staff, mud-built huts. “On the whole, Government workmen at Leopoldville struck me as being well cared for, and they were certainly none of them idle.” In thus taking care of their employés the agents have performed a duty which has not only resulted in the well-being of the blacks, but has also allowed of a reduction in the number of the workers, and accomplishing better and more rapidly executed work. [Sidenote: Imperfect, but Good.]