The greed of Leopold and the apathy of the nations are together responsible for the existence of present conditions in the Congo. It is irrelevant to answer that there are also atrocities in Portuguese and other possessions of Africa. There is more oppression and cruelty in the Congo Free State than in all the rest of Africa. Moreover, we have no authority over Portugal and can exercise only the right of appeal and its moral influence. But the Powers signatory to the Brussels Act, with the United States in the lead, created the Congo Free State, and are still the formal guardians of its people. A conference of those Powers would without doubt deal with other evils in Africa besides those of the Congo Free State. To the average man, unversed in the forms of international usage, it would seem within the competence of any one of the Powers which committed to King Leopold a sacred trust upon certain definite conditions, to urge upon the other responsible powers the duty of meeting again to inquire whether those conditions have been fulfilled and to adjudicate the issues relating to their non-fulfillment. Meanwhile, the Congo State lies bleeding at every pore, and those who are hoping and praying in all the world for a people who have ceased to hope and have never learned to pray, have their eyes turned towards the United States. A missionary writing from Baringa in the Congo said: “An old chief came up to where we were standing. ‘Oh, white man,’ he pleaded, ‘do have our work changed. We do not want to shirk it, but there is no longer any rubber in our district and my people are being killed for nothing. What am I to do?’ I suggested that the inspector appointed by the king would no doubt come to Baringa and he could appeal to him. He asked how long it would be before the inspector would come. I said perhaps two months; upon which he cried out, ‘Two months! It will be too late then. We shall all be killed before that time.’ And after we had left him we could hear him crying after us, ‘We shall all be killed! We shall all be killed!’” Four years have passed, and in all likelihood the chief with his family has been killed long ago, leaving not even a name behind him, but only this haunting cry, that keeps ringing in one’s heart. So they all are crying to us with outstretched hands; a people who call the white man, _Father_, and trust him with pathetic confidence until he betrays their trust and smites them with the rod of tyranny. I think I can hear their piteous cry wafted on the winds that wander over the great forest: “We shall all be killed! We shall all be killed!” XI THE FANG During my second and much longer term in Africa I lived at Baraka, a mission station two miles south of Libreville, in the Congo Français, on the great estuary of the Gaboon River, or, the _bay_, as I always called it. The coast tribe of the Gaboon is called the _Mpongwe_. But my work was almost entirely with the interior tribe—the _Fang_.