This regulation, which the State permitted to the
concessionaires of the railroad, sends the agents of the State into
the wilderness physically and mentally unequipped, and it is no
wonder the weaker brothers go mad, and act accordingly.
My black boys travelled second-class, which means an open car with
narrow seats very close together and a wooden roof. On these cars
passengers are allowed twenty pounds of luggage and permitted to
collect two hundred and fifty miles of heat and dust. To a black boy
twenty pounds is little enough, for he travels with much more
baggage than an average "blanc." I am not speaking of the Congo boy.
All the possessions the State leaves him he could carry in his
pockets, and he has no pockets. But wherever he goes the Kroo boy,
Mendi boy, or Sierra Leone boy carries all his belongings with him
in a tin trunk painted pink, green, or yellow. He is never separated
from his "box," and the recognized uniform of a Kroo boy at work, is
his breechcloth, and hanging from a ribbon around his knee, the key
to his box. If a boy has no box he generally carries three keys.
In the first-class car were three French officers en route to
Brazzaville, the capital of the French Congo, and a dog, a sad
mongrel, very dirty, very hungry. On each side of the tiny toy car
were six revolving-chairs, so the four men, not to speak of the dog,
quite filled it. And to our own bulk each added hand-bags, cases of
beer, helmets, gun-cases, cameras, water-bottles, and, as the road
does not supply food of any kind, his chop-box.
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