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at last developed into the Congo Free State, under the personal sovereignty of King Leopold. At first the Association devoted itself to sending expeditions to the great central lakes from the east coast; but failure, more or less complete, attended its efforts in this direction, and it was not until the return of Stanley from his great journey down the Congo in January 1878, that its ruling spirit, King Leopold, definitely turned his thoughts towards the Congo. In June of that year, Mr Stanley visited the king at Brussels, and in the following November a private conference was held, and a committee was appointed for the investigation of the Upper Congo. Mr Stanley’s remarkable discovery had stirred ambition in other capitals than Brussels. France had always taken a keen interest in West Africa, and in the years Vadthe 1^75 to 1878 M. Savorgnan de Brazza had Congo. carried out a successful exploration of the Ogowe river to the south of the Gabun. M. de Brazza determined that the Ogowe did not offer that great waterway into the interior of which he was in search, and he returned to Europe without having heard of the discoveries of Mr Stanley farther south. Naturally, however, Mr Stanley’s discoveries were keenly followed in France. In Portugal, too, the discovery of the Congo with its magnificent unbroken waterway of more than a thousand miles into the heart of the continent, served to revive the languid energies of the Portuguese, who promptly began to furbish up claims whose age was in inverse ratio to their validity. Claims, annexations, and occupations were in the air, and when in January 1879, Mr Stanley left Europe as the accredited agent of King Leopold and the Congo committee, the strictest secrecy was observed as to his real aims and intentions. The expedition was, it was alleged, proceeding up the Congo to assist the Belgian expedition which had entered from the east coast, and Mr Stanley himself went first to Zanzibar. But in August 1879 Mr Stanley found himself again at Banana Point, at the mouth of the Congo, with, as he himself has written, “ the novel mission of sowing along its banks civilized settlements to peacefully conquer and subdue it, to remould it in harmony with modern ideas into national states, within whose limits the European merchant shall go hand in hand with the dark African trader, and justice and law and order shall prevail, and murder and lawlessness and the cruel barter of slaves shall be overcome.” The irony of human aspirations was never perhaps more plainly demonstrated than in the contrast between the ideal thus set before themselves by those who employed Mr Stanley, and the actual results of their intervention in Africa. Mr Stanley founded his first station at Vivi, between the mouth of the Congo and the rapids that obstruct its course where it breaks over the western edge of the central continental plateau. Above the rapids he established a station on Stanley Pool and named it Leopoldville, founding other stations on the main stream in the direction of the falls that bear his name. Meanwhile M. de Brazza was far from idle. He had returned to Africa towards the end of the same year which saw Stanley back on the Congo, and while the Rivalry agents of King Leopold were making treaties and founding stations along the southern bank of the river, M. de Brazza and other French agents were equally busy on the northern bank. M. de Brazza was sent out to Africa by the French committee of the International African Association, which provided him with the funds for the expedition. His avowed object was to explore the region between the Gabun and Lake Chad. But there is not much doubt that his real object was to anticipate Mr Stanley on the Congo. The international character of the association founded by King Leopold
[history
was never more than a polite fiction, and the rivalry between the French and the Belgians on the Congo was soon open if not avowed. In October 1880 M. de Brazza made a solemn treaty with a chief on the north bank of the Congo, who claimed that his authority extended over a large area, including territory on the southern bank of the river. As soon as this chief had accepted French protection, M. de Brazza crossed over to the south of the river, and founded a station close to the present site of Leopoldville. The discovery of the French station by Mr Stanley naturally annoyed King Leopold’s agent, and he promptly challenged the rights of the chief who purported to have placed the country under French protection, and himself founded a Belgian station close to the site selected by M. de Brazza. In the result, the French station was withdrawn to the northern side of Stanley Pool, where it is now known as Brazzaville. The activity of French and Belgian agents in the Congo had not passed unnoticed in Lisbon, and the Portuguese Government saw that no time was to be lost if the claims it had never ceased ^^fuese to put forward on the west coast were not to go by default. At varying periods during the 19th century Portugal had put forward claims to the whole of the West African coast, between 5° 12' and 8° south latitude. North of the Congo mouth, she claimed the territories of Kabinda and Molemba, alleging that they had been in her possession since 1484. Great Britain had never, however, admitted this claim, and south of the Congo had declined to recognize Portuguese possessions as extending north of Ambriz. In 1856 orders were given to British cruisers to prevent by force any attempt to extend Portuguese dominion north of that place. But the Portuguese had been persistent in urging their claims, and in 1882 negotiations were again opened with the British Government for recognition of Portuguese rights over both banks of the Congo on the coast, and for some distance inland. Into the details of the negotiations, which were conducted for Great Britain by Lord Granville, who was then Secretary for Foreign Affairs, it is unnecessary to enter; they resulted in the signing on the 26th February 1884 of an agreement, by which Great Britain recognized the sovereignty of the king of Portugal “ over that part of the west coast of Africa, situated between 8° and 5° 12' south latitude,” and inland as far as Nokki, on the south bank of the Congo, below Yivi. The navigation of the Congo was to be controlled by an Anglo-Portuguese commission. The publication of this treaty evoked immediate protests, not only on the Continent, but in Great Britain. In face of the universal disapproval aroused by the agreement, Lord Granville found himself unable to ratify it. The protests had not been confined to France and the King of the Belgians. Germany had not yet acquired formal footing in Africa, but she was crouching for the spring prior to taking her part in the scramble, and Prince Bismarck had expressed, in vigorous language, the objections entertained by Germany to the Anglo-Portuguese agreement. For some time before 1884 there had been growing up a general conviction that it would be desirable, for the Powers who were interesting themselves in Africa, to come to some agreement as to “ the rules of the game,” and to define their respective interests so far as that was practicable. Lord Granville’s ill-fared treaty brought this sentiment to a head, and it was agreed to hold an international conference on African affairs. But before discussing the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, it will be well to see what was the position, on the eve of the conference, in other parts of the African continent. In the southern section of Africa, south of the Zambezi,
