At least along the main waterways. Years before he could
have stopped them. But these were the seven fallow years, when
millions of tons of red rubber were being dumped upon the wharf at
Antwerp; little, roughly rolled red balls, like pellets of
coagulated blood, which had cost their weight in blood, which would
pay Leopold their weight in gold.
He can not plead ignorance. Of all that goes on in his big
plantation no man has a better knowledge. Without their personal
honesty, he follows every detail of the "business" of his rubber
farm with the same diligence that made rich men of George Boldt and
Marshall Field. Leopold's knowledge is gained through many spies, by
voluminous reports, by following up the expenditure of each centime,
of each arm's-length of blue cloth. Of every Belgian employed on
his farm, and ninety-five per cent. are Belgians, he holds the
_dossier_; he knows how many kilos a month the agent whips out of
his villages, how many bottles of absinthe he smuggles from the
French side, whether he lives with one black woman or five, why his
white wife in Belgium left him, why he left Belgium, why he dare not
return. The agent knows that Leopold, King of the Belgians, knows,
and that he has shared that knowledge with the agent's employer, the
man who by bribes of rich bonuses incites him to crime, the man who
could throw him into a Belgian jail, Leopold, King of the Congo.
The agent decides for him it is best to please both Leopolds, and
Leopold makes no secret of what best pleases him.
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