Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1890 — Ivory Raiding. [ARTICLE]

Ivory Raiding.

From a letter of Mr. Stanley. “Slave trading becomes innocence when compared with ivory raiding. The latter has become literally a most 1 bloody business. Bands consisting of from three hundred to six hundred Manyema, armed with Enfield carabines, and officered by Zanzibari Arabs and Swahili, range over that immense forest land east of the Upper Congo, destroying every district they discover, and driving such natives as escape the sudden fusilades into the deepest recesses of the forest. In the midst of a vast circle described by several days’ march in every direction, the ivory raiders select a locality wherein plantains are abundant, prepare a'few acres for rice, and, while the crop is growing, 6ally out by twenties and forties to destroy every village within the circle, and to hunt up the miserable natives who have escaped their first secret and sudden onslaught. “They are aware that the forest, though it furnishes recesses of bush impervious to a discovery, is a hungry wilderness outside the plaintain grove of the clearing, and that to sustain life the women must forage far and near for berries, wild fruit and fungi. These scattered bands of ivory hnntara find these women and children an easy prey. The startling explosion of heavily loaded guns in the deep woods paralyzes the timid creatures, and before they recover from their deadly fright they are rushed upon and secured. By the possession of these captives they impose upon the tribal communities the necessity of surrendering every article of value, ivory or goats, to gain the liberty of their relatives. Thus the land becomes thoroughly denuded of ivory, hut unfortunately, also, it becomes a wild waste.”