"The Tambatamba, Bokusu, Batetela, and other followers of Arab families are congregated at Stanley Falls on both banks as far down as'La Romee. These two latter tribes live in large mud wall houses, detached, with yards or courts. They are both farmers and stock breeders. The former are clean, clothed, and polite, while the latter are like the Arabs, superior in appearance, dress, and manners in fact, the aristocracy of the land. Their fields are tilled by women and dependents and slaves. They are not true Arabs, though there are a few of these too among them. In all things except religion the Tambatambas follow their Arab conquerors of earlier days, but of religion they have only the superstitions without the bonds, rules, or system of worship of the Mahommedans."

"This part of the State, that is to say the east of the Congo, is inhabited by happy blacks who often and without bringing them there, compared before me the happy present with the misery and the terror of when the Arabs had established themselves as slave traders in the region."

"Leopold II was able to push through his imperial wish and obtained that the fate of what would then be called the Congo Free State was linked to his own. He gave Congo its shape and dimensions, as well as a financial-capitalist structure. However, the debt burden that had become too heavy meant that the king handed over his colony to Belgium, a gift that the parliament was hesitant about but did not dare to refuse."