duty, instead of which they have probably been ill-treating the natives. The whole thing will be changed now, however, for they will have a much more highly organised army and a much higher class of officer. It has been these unscrupulous foreigners—Italians, etc.—who have been guilty of the cruelties reported. Another proof of the endeavours to stop any existing abuses of administration is the fact that a Belgian officer who for many years held a high post in the Congo has recently been sent out by the King as Royal High Commissioner, to investigate all questions of maladministration and, particularly, payment of State employees and the natives for labour, with power there and then to rectify or alter any existing rules which he thinks might be amended in any part of the Congo, the territories of concessionary companies included. With regard to the mutilations in the Congo, described by Mr. Casement, I may tell you that only last year in Uganda I saw similar mutilations, which, it is well known, were done by the natives in Uganda, notably in King Mtesa’s day. In walking through Toro and Unyoro, I have seen men without noses, ears, and, frequently, without hands. With regard to Lord Cromer’s assertion that in the Lado Enclave the natives have left the banks of the river and the immediate regions of the Belgian posts,—well, I have walked along the Nile from the Albert Nyanza into the Soudan, and visited the Belgian stations on the river, besides having seen a good deal of the natives on both banks. I feel sure that Lord Cromer is wrong when he states that the natives are leaving the Belgian side and going over to the Uganda side. The natives certainly had nothing to complain of, and certainly are not migrating across the river. As for there being no villages round Lado Enclave, the explanation is that there is for several months of the year absolutely no water and, therefore, necessarily no villages. But at many other places along the banks in the Lado Enclave there are large villages. I saw several thousand natives at Wadelai, employed by the Belgians in rebuilding the old fort of Emin Pasha, preparatory to making a large station there, and they seemed quite contented and happy, and worked like a hive of bees. The conclusion to which I am irresistibly driven as a disinterested observer is that the present administration of the Congo is not only free from cruelties, but is of the most complete and efficient description, and counts for the fullest commercial and industrial development of the Free State. I am sure that that administration is doing its level best in every way, from the highest to the lowest officer, to make the country prosperous, and the native happy and useful.—_June 23, 1904._ [Illustration: Convent of Franciscans of St. Gabriel of the Falls (Oriental Province).] MR. GREY (_English Civil Engineer_)