Though all civilised countries were more or less interested in the opening up of Central Africa, less than twenty thousand dollars was subscribed outside Belgium for that object. It had, therefore, some years before the Berlin Conference, become necessary to raise money for the continuation of the work. On November 25, 1878, the _Comité d’Études du Haut-Congo_ was formed in Brussels, with King Leopold as honorary president and Colonel Strauch as president. The _Comité_ was really a company, and it had a capital of a million francs. Thanks no less to its wise direction than to its sufficient capital, the operations of the _Comité_ were attended with so much success that it soon usurped the place of the International African Association as principal agent of the civilising crusade undertaken by King Leopold. The work of the _Comité_ was consolidated and greatly accelerated by the General Act of the Berlin Conference, assuring the Sovereignty of the Congo State to King Leopold, it being no more than natural that Belgians should have increased confidence in a State secure under the rule of their own King, and be disposed to invest their money therein more freely than when the form of its government was matter of doubt. Though much still remained to be done, the Congo Free State had now been founded, and that fact of itself was sufficient to inspire confidence everywhere, but particularly among the Belgian people, whose King was its founder. [Illustration: Making a Road (175 Kilometres) for Automobiles (Kwango).] CHAPTER IV EARLY BELGIAN EXPEDITIONS [Sidenote: Cartography and Civilisation.] Having narrated the principal political circumstances which eventuated in the founding of the Congo Free State, it now becomes necessary to revert to an earlier period, and sketch briefly the various Belgian expeditions to whose labours are so largely owing our knowledge of the geography of Central Africa, the suppression of the slave trade there, and the establishment of civilising and humanitarian government by Belgians.