Congo: What It's Like

In the northern Congo, weeds and wild bush snaked across roads traveled only by stealthy bands of marauding army deserters. In Leopoldville, garbage piled high and the prevailing scent came from the sewers. Jealous rivals have sliced the Congo into six distinct nominally independent "nations," and in each juju magic and ritual murder are becoming the savage law of the countryside, just as they had been when Henry Morton Stanley arrived in 1876.

For example, there is the "nation" of little, spade-bearded Albert Kalonji. A vain and cocky tribalist, Kalonji is an ex-railroad...

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