Boma is no longer “the emporium of the Congo Empire,” if it ever did deserve that title.  Like Porto da Lenha, it is kept up by the hopes of seeing better days, which are not doomed to dawn.  Even at the time of my visit some 400 to 500 negroes were under guard in a deserted factory, and, whilst we were visiting Nessalla, they were marched down to bathe.  When I returned from the cataracts, the barracoon contained only fifty or sixty, the rest having been shunted off to some unguarded point.  At a day’s notice a thousand, and within a week 3,000 head could be procured from the adjoining settlements, where the chattels are kept at work.  As in Tuckey’s day, “those exported are either captives in war or condemned criminals.”  During the Free Emigration as much as $80 have been paid per man, a large sum for “Congoes:”  whilst a cargo of 500 “Minas” (Guinea negroes) loses at most 20 per cent., these less hardy gangs seldom escape without at least double the deaths by dysentery or some other epidemic.  Now they are freely offered for $10 to $20, but there are no buyers; the highest bid of which I heard was $100 for a house-"help.”

The slave-traders in the Congo look upon their employment as did the contrabandist in the golden days of smuggling; the “free sailor” whom Marryatt depicts, a law-breaker, yet not less a very pleasant, companionable fellow.  The unhappy differences between the late British Commissioner for Loanda and the Judge of the mixed Court, Sr.  Jose Julio Rodriguez, who followed his enemy to the grave on April 12, 1863, rendered Sao Paulo anything but a pleasant place to an English resident; but the rancour had not extended to the Congo, and, so far from showing chagrin, the agents declared that without the “coffin squadron,” negroes would have been a mere drug in the market.  The only deplaisir is that which I had already found in a Gaboon factory, the excessive prevalence of petty pilfering.  The Moleques or house-boys steal like magpies, even what is utterly useless to them; these young clerks of St. Nicholas will scream and writhe, and confess and beg pardon under the lash, and repeat the offence within the hour:  as they are born serviles, we cannot explain the habit by Homer’s,

“Jove fixed it certain that whatever day
Makes man a slave takes half his worth away.”

One of our watches was found in the pocket of a noble interpreter, who, unabashed, declared that he placed it there for fear of its being injured; and the traders are constantly compelled to call in the Fetishman for the protection of their stores against the prigging chiefs.  Yet in Tuckey’s time there was only one thief at Boma, a boy who stole a knife, confessed, and restored it.  During a month’s residence amongst the pagans of the interior, where the houses swarmed with serviles, and where my outfit, which was never locked up, must have represented a plate-chest in England, not the smallest article was “found missing,” nor could anything be touched except by collusion with the head man.