Word: congoland
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...broad-boulevarded tropical city of Leopoldville one day last month, a security officer handed the Belgian Governor General a piece of paper with a song written on it. The composer was unknown, but the song itself was being sung at nationalist meetings throughout the territory. "Congoland, land of our forebears," ran the opening lines, "we will fight for your freedom, if blood must run in streams." Last week, after the worst eruption the Congo had seen in a decade, blood did in fact run in Léopoldville...
Their Majesties' present Afric tour was preluded when they left Antwerp some weeks ago on the steamer Thysville, but began in earnest as they landed at Boma, in the mouth of Mother Congo. The big black toe of Congoland was their objective-namely the city of Elizabethville, which lies 900 miles inland, at the very toe and tip of the Belgian Congo, just where it touches Great Britain's colony of Northern Rhodesia (so named after its exploiter, Cecil John Rhodes). Between Elizabethville and Port Franc-qui (named after the rehabilitator of Belgium's currency, former Finance...
...King Leopold II of the Belgians (1835-1909), detested uncle and immediate predecessor of beloved King Albert I. Uncle Leopold went wickedly a-travel-ing when he was Crown Prince, to India, to China, to Japan and home around Africa, with a momentous visit to Mother Congo. Memories of Congoland germinated in the shrewd brain of Uncle Leopold and flowered when he became King. The master move of his long and wily reign was to call the International Conference of 1876 at Brussels, where he piously proposed to the Great Powers a program for "civilizing" the Congo and suppressing slavery...
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