Kitenge, I started at five o'clock on the morning of September 11th. My interview with the Commandant had lasted the whole night. Six days' rapid marching, with an average of eight hours a day, brought us to N'Gandu — too late, however, to save our brave and faithful ally, who had been shot forty-eight hours before our arrival. I was perhaps the first to feel the effects of this ill-conceived policy.

While yet two days from Lomami, and only a few hours after the death of Gongo Lutete, the natives, by means of the drum telegraph, all knew of what had taken place at N'Gandu, and, as their great chief was dead, considered themselves at liberty to murder and eat all his personal followers and outposts. This particular tribe had seven of Gongo's men billeted on them, whose duty it was to forward all communications