CONGO BOUNDARY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 306, 19 September 1908, Page 5

CONGO BOUNDARY.

WORK OF THE FRONTIER COMMISSION A ROUGH TIME. CANNIBALISTIC NATIVES. fm TEI.EGRAPH —mess ASSOCIATION—COMEIOHT.) London, September 17. The work of the Anglo-Congolese Frontier Commission, which was despatched to report -on the question of | tlio disputed frontier between Great Britain and the Congo Free State, proved most harassing. Several of tho escort were killed. The party discovered in the forests on the banks of the Semliki River natives who ate each other's children. THE LAKE DWELLERS' FLOATING VILLAGES. ■While the Commissioners wero in tho Semliki country there was a gcod deal of disturbance, and near the post of Mbeni tho country was in a continual state of guerilla warfare. On Lake Albert Edward a visit was paid to a colony of natives who live on a floating village. It is said that these people originally took to the water for fear of lions. Tho natives live almost wholly on fish, and their houses are each erected on separate islands or rafts of papyrus. A terrible famine was raging in Busoga, and people were reported to do dying like flies, over 3000 having perished. In the Ituri forest many pygmies were met with. The Commissioners were at work for over a year. Tho British Commissioner was Lieut.Colonel R. G. T. Bright, C.M.G. The Commissioners had not to is the remains to be done by negotiation between London and Brussels—but to report, upon it, and their work in no way binds the respective Government, who will deal with the Blatter through, diplomatic channels. But the Commission has made it clear that .when the AngloCongolese Convention, 1391, made the 30th meridian tho frontier, the map then used placed the meridian 20 miles further west than its true position, lj tho frontier is to be the meridian as now ascertained, Britain will lose a strip of territory 20 miles wide by 120 miles long, and will also be deprived of any access to Lake Albert Edward. The British contention is that the original convention still holds good, and that the strip in question romains British. Meanwhile, it is' being treated as a neutral zone.