It will be noted that an important epoch had now been reached. King Leopold’s mandate was clear and irrevocable. If it had been an arduous struggle to win that mandate, the effort counted for little when compared with what was needed for the accomplishment of the task now opening out before him. The King of a small State, and with a depleted fortune, Leopold II. had, as materials for his task, his own natural ability, the righteousness of his cause, and the unswerving loyalty of his people—three grand factors, it is true, but hardly commensurate with its magnitude. The suppression of slavery in a region a third as large as the United States, populated by diverse and hostile tribes, among whom slavery and cannibalism had prevailed from time immemorial, would have been no light undertaking for a missionary Crœsus with a huge army at his back. King Leopold was no such Crœsus, and his pioneers were few in number. But what they lacked in numbers they made up in geographical knowledge, in bravery, and in tact in their dealings both with the Negro and his oppressor, the Arab. Being human, some few mistakes were made; but they were very few—fewer than has frequently marked the establishment of a European colony in countries where there has been no question of slavery awaiting solution, no cannibalism to stamp out, no climatic dangers to encounter. When the time comes for King Leopold to be assigned his place in history as an empire builder, the future historian will probably designate as his Majesty’s most brilliant work his solution of the problem of the suppression of the slave trade in Central Africa. A wrong may be persevered in until its perpetrator comes to believe it is right. The Arab had for so many centuries harried the Negro race—and, taking advantage of their tribal disputes, plundered, enslaved, and sold them, under circumstances of revolting cruelty—that he had long ago grown to regard the Negro as his natural prey, and was seriously alarmed at the appearance in Congoland of the white-faced strangers with their unwelcome creed of liberty for all men, which they dreaded even more than their weapons of precision. To the Arabs this was a strange doctrine, inimical, they conceived, to their vital interests, and it behoved them to resist it to the death. That their alarm was well founded the sequel will show. [Sidenote: Congo Free State Laws.] One of the first acts of the newly recognised Congo Free State was to forbid trade in firearms, gunpowder, and other explosives. Another act defined contracts of service between natives and foreigners, affording the former special protection. A third act created a volunteer corps whose chief business it was to protect individual liberty. Before any aggressive action, however, could be taken by this corps, the consent of the sovereign’s delegate was necessary. [Illustration: Various Mounts, Lusambo. (Lualaba-Kassai).] [Illustration: Cattle, Luvungy (Kivu).]