Conrad In The Congo
It was the year 1868. A young boy of about nine years of age stood looking at a map of Africa. The boy raised up his hand and stuck his finger directly into the middle of the “dark continent.” “When I grow up I shall go there,” said this boy with great enthusiasm (Conrad 13). Little did he know that some years later his childhood wish would come true.
Joseph Conrad grew up to become quite the sailor, starting as an apprentice on a French vessel in 1875 and working his way to become a master of English ships from 1878-1889 (Jean-Aubrey 19). He spent fifteen years at sea, traveling to destinations all over the globe. After much traveling he returned home to Europe. While there, he tried desperately to find a new ship to command, but there were none available. He spent months searching and still could not find a ship to call his own. It was then, while stuck in Europe with nothing to do, that Conrad wrote Almayer’s Folly, his first novel. When Conrad was presented with the opportunity to go to the Congo in 1889, he did not hesitate. After months of correspondence between himself and members of the Societe Anonyme pour le Commerce du Haut-Congo in Brussels and the killing of a steamboat captain by natives in the Congo, Joseph Conrad was ready to journey deep into the heart of Africa.
The first part of Conrad’s trip would take him to Brussels, where he would sign the final contract, obligating himself to serve for three years as an officer on river steamboats in the Congo. Conrad was to sail on the Ville de Maceio to get to “Boma, seat of the Government of the Independent State of the Congo since 1886” (Jean-Aubry 46). On the steamer, he traveled with a man by the name of Harou. He was a “Belgian officer who had made tours of the Independent State, knew its risks and put the English captain wise to the true state of affairs” (Jean-Aubry 42). In a letter to his cousin, written from Sierre Leone, Conrad humorously expressed his concerns about his health on the trip (Karl 51-53). After reaching Boma, he would take a smaller steamer to reach Matadi, the “terminating point of navigation on the Lower Congo” (Jean-Aubry 46).
On June 13, 1890, they arrived in Matadi. It was here that Conrad would begin his famous “diary,” which he kept only until his arrival in Kinchassa on August 1st. Conrad’s “diary” can be considered vague at best. It gives very general descriptions of the landscape and only mentions certain people and places. Here, in Matadi, Conrad met the chief of the station of the Societe Anonyme Belge pour le Commerce du Haut-Congo, Mr. Grosse, and a Mr. Roger Casement. During his stay he meets with these gentlemen and makes note of the good impression made on him by Casement, referring to him as well spoken and “intelligent.” In the diary, he mentions a feeling that “life amongst the people (white) around here cannot be very comfortable” and that it would probably be for the best to avoid making acquaintances (Najder 7).
After spending two weeks in Matadi, Conrad and a caravan of thirty-two men, including the aforementioned Harou, begin their journey by land to Kinchassa. They followed a common trail, which is a railroad today, through the Pataballa Mountains to Congo de Lamba. We can see from the following “diary” entries that it was a long, arduous journey.
Sun[day], 29th. Ascent of Pataballa
sufficiently fatiguing. Camped at 11h a.m. at
Nsoke River. Mosquitos.
Monday, 30th. To Congo de Lamba after passing
black rocks long ascent. Harou giving up.
Bother. Camp bad. Water far. Dirty. At night
Harou better. (Najder 7)
On the third of July, Conrad mentions that two Danish officers, whom he had made note of earlier in the diary, leave the convoy upon passing a Protestant mission in Banza Manteka.
On July 8th they arrived in Manyanga in the early morning, where they would stop and rest for two weeks, something Conrad referred to as a “most comfortable and pleasant halt” (Najder 11). The group was supplied shelter and provisions by Messrs. Heyn and Jaeger. “We know nothing of the latter, but Reginald Heyn was an Englishman, at that time Manager of Transports of the Societe du Haut-Congo” (Jean-Aubry 56). Upon leaving on July 25th, he once again mentions the poor physical condition of Harou, who now needs to be carried in a hammock. Conrad also notes that he, himself, is “not in good form” but is not unable to walk (Najder 12).
On the morning of July 27th, they changed their course and went to the Mission of Sutili. There they met Mrs. Comber, wife of the Reverend Comber who had been in the Congo for nearly ten years (Jean Aubry 56). After receiving a “hospitable reception by Mrs. Comber” and touring the establishment, they continued to Luasi, where they had sent their luggage carriers before their temporary stop at the mission (Najder 12). In the last days of July Harou became wrought with illness, indicated by a “bilious attack and fever” in which he was “vomiting bile in enormous quantities” (Najder 13-14). After receiving some treatment they lifted him into a hammock and headed for Kinfumu. This extra burden of Harou for the carriers was seemingly too much, as Conrad noticed how uneasy they were becoming. The night of the 30th, he decided to try to prevent mutiny. “Had them all called and made a speech which they did not understand. They promise good behavior” (Najder 14).
In his final “diary” entry on August 1st, he describes the scene in the “government shanty” in which they are staying where a thirteen-year-old boy was being treated for a gunshot wound to the head. Conrad seems to summarize his horrific journey from Matadi when he writes, “Harou not very well. Mosquitos. Frogs. Beastly. Glad to see the end of this stupid tramp. Feel rather seedy” (Najder 15). After thirty-five days of traveling, nineteen of which were spent walking, he had finally reached Kinchassa.
When he arrived in Kinchassa, “the registration port of the Upper Congo fleet” (Jean-Aubry 57), he met with the acting Vice-Manager of the port, M. Camille Delcommune, a man whom Conrad will come to dislike. There he was informed that his assigned steamer, “the Florida” had sunk a few days earlier and was still being repaired. The ship had run aground leaving Pool and was refloated by the ss. “Roi des Belges.” Rather than wait for his steamer to be fixed, Conrad found himself a spot as second in command on the “Roi des Belges” under Captain Koch. Koch “undertook to initiate him into the difficulties and dangers of freshwater navigation” (Jean-Aubry 58). While traveling on this new steamer, Koch becomes sick. Delcommune writes a letter to Conrad asking him to act as commander until Koch recovers from his illness.
After traveling on the “Roi des Belges” for months, Conrad returned to take command of “the Florida,” the ship originally assigned to him. Delcommune, however, felt that because of Conrad’s already developing health conditions he should not be given command of a steamer. After hearing this decision in October 1890, Conrad decided that he would no longer stay in Africa. He left Kinchassa in the beginning of November and traveled back to Boma, where he waited for a steamer to take him back home to Europe. Here is a passage from A Personal Record that shows Conrad’s changed attitude at the end of his journey through Africa.
I arrived at that delectable capital Boma,
where, before the departure of the steamer which
was to take me home I had the time to wish
myself dead over and over again with perfect
sincerity. (Conrad 14)
When he arrived in Europe in January of 1891, he spent his first weeks in the hospital recovering from what he called “ ‘a long, long illness, and a very sad convalescence’” (Jean-Aubry 73). Conrad’s trip to the Congo had changed him forever. He had continuous health problems all his life, including “attacks of fever and gout” (Jean-Aubry 73). But, more importantly, the trip had changed who Conrad was. The best way to describe this change would be to quote his lifelong friend Edward Garnett who said, “Conrad’s Congo experiences were the turning-point in his mental life and that their effects on him determined his transformation from a sailor to a writer” (Garnett 8).
Works Cited
Conrad, Joseph. A Personal Record. New York: Harper, 1912.
Garnett, Edward. Letters From Joseph Conrad 1895-1924. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1928.
Jean-Aubry, Georges. Joseph Conrad in the Congo. New York: Haskell, 1973.
Karl, Frederick Robert and Laurence Davies, eds. The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad Vol. 1-6. New York: Cambridge U., 1983.
Najder, Zdzislaw, ed. The Congo Diary and Other Uncollected Pieces. New York: Doubleday, 1978.