M. Dryepoint was up
the river, so I did not meet him, but I was most courteously and
hospitably entertained by M. Fumiere. He gave me a whole house to
myself, and personally showed me over his small kingdom. All the
houses were of brick, and the paths and roads were covered with
gravel and lined with flowers. Nothing in the Congo is more curious
than this pretty town of suburban villas and orderly machine shops;
with the muddy river for a street and the impenetrable jungle for a
back yard. The home of the director at Dima is the proud boast of
the entire Congo. And all they say of it is true. It did have a
billiard table and ice, and a piano, and M. Fumiere invited me to
join his friends at an excellent dinner. In furnishing this
celebrated house, the idea had apparently been to place in it the
things one would least expect to find in the jungle, or, without
wishing to be ungracious, anywhere. So, although there are no women
at Dima, there are great mirrors in brass frames, chandeliers of
glass with festoons and pendants of glass, metal lamps with shades
of every color, painted plaster statuettes and carved silk-covered
chairs. In the red glow of the lamps, surrounded by these Belgian
atrocities, M. Fumiere sat down to the pianola. The heat of Africa
filled the room; on one side we could have touched the jungle, on
the other in the river the hippopotamus puffed and snorted. M.
Fumiere pulled out the stops, and upon the heat and silence of the
night, floated the "Evening Star," Mascagni's "Intermezzo," and
"Chin-chin Chinaman.
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