Slowly but surely the black is being transformed, his intellectual horizon is being enlarged, his sentiments are being refined. A thousand facts, in appearance insignificant, mark the halting-place left behind. The black to-day has his place marked out where ten years ago no one thought of using him. He is to be seen, according to his aptitude, as a clerk in the Administration, as a postman, as a warehouseman, as a pilot or sailor on the river boats; also as a smith, mechanic, sawyer, or brickmaker. Porter in the region of the Cataracts, navvy on the railway, he offers his arms and his labour when the remuneration satisfies the new needs that have taken birth in him. Trader above all, he becomes of a more delicate taste in the acceptance of merchandise in exchange; the stuffs, the tissues of striking colours but mediocre quality, formerly sought for, have to-day no demand, and must give place to articles of a superior kind. He accepts money; he is even acquainted with paper money, for many purchases are effected by means of bonds, which are then cashed at the European revenue offices. He is conscious of his own personality—claims loudly the redress of any wrong which he conceives himself to have suffered. Grown more sociable, he receives, without distrust in his house, the stranger and the traveller. He begins to repudiate his old primitive customs, such as the _casque_, or the proof of poison. He sends his children to the missionary schools; and, to encourage him in this, the State has started a system of colonies of schools, the pupils of which are rapidly increasing. Fetishism is beginning to lose adherents, and religious proselytism proceeds not without success. The legend of the Negro opposed to all improvement can no longer be maintained in face of this experience. We may consider it as certain that the native, well conducted and well directed, is fit to be assimilated with civilisation. Guarding ourselves against optimism, we do not disguise that there remains much to be done in order to introduce by successive stages that civilisation to the farthest frontiers of the State. But the facts warrant our believing in the possibility of such a result, which is the final object of the enterprise of your Majesty. The Congo State in the few years which have elapsed since its creation, has not failed in its task. Time and perseverance will crown the work, and it will be to Belgium, if she wishes it, that its accomplishment will belong. [Illustration: Grand Hotel, Boma.] In a later report—the last from which it will be necessary to quote—Baron Van Eetvelde reviews the complete work of the Congo Free State from its creation to the date of his writing (1897), and very ably sums up the situation then existing: