came up before Parliament, and it was decided to continue the present form of government, reserving the right of annexation to the King alone. The departments of the local government are: Justice, defense, public force, finance, agriculture and industry, transport, marine, and public works, and superintendence of State lands. For administrative purposes, the State is divided into fourteen districts, administered by commissaries. Civil law is in force wherever the State's authority reaches. Courts of First Instance have been established, and there is a Court of Appeal at Boma, with a right of further appeal in more important cases to a superior council at Brussels. There is also a commission to protect the natives from ill treatment. The army, consisting of natives under Euporean officers and sergeants, numbers nearly 13,000 men. The chief sources of revenue are import and export duties, State domains, Government transportation lines, and portfolio taxes. The budget balances at present at about $6,000,000, the expenditure slightly exceeding the revenue. The principal expenditures are for administration, the public domains, and the marine and transport service. The legal money is the same as that of Belgium. The total indebtedness of the State amounts to over $32,000,000, including the 25, 000,000 francs advanced by Belgium in 1890, and the loan of 50,000,000 francs. at 4 per cent., is sued in 1901 for the construction of railways and other public works. The Belgian act of 1901 relinquished the repayment by the Free State of Belgium's advances and the interest thereon, and these obligations are to revive only in case Belgium decides not to annex the country. The population has been variously estimated at from fourteen million to twice that figure. The inhabitants are mostly of the Bantu race. The Azandés, a superior native people, are found in the northeastern part, and there are many bands of pygmies along the Congo. In 1901 the European population was 2204, about half of whom were Belgians. Among the numerous 'stations' in the Free State are: Boma, the capital, situated on the Congo, about 50 miles from its mouth, and the centre of a large trade; the port of Banana, with an excellent harbor; Matadi, a promising railway point at the foot of the Congo Rapids; Ndolo, an important river port; Leopoldville, apparently destined to become the capital of the State: Stanley Pool, Equator ville, Basoko. and Stanley Falls. The religion of the natives is generally of a very low order, consisting largely of a repulsive fetishism, including cannibalism in many districts. Missionary work, though without financial support from the State, is being actively and successfully carried on at 76 missions. The instruction is educational as well as religious. The State, mainly for military purposes, has provided three agricultural and technical colonies capable of receiving 1500 boys. ETHNOLOGY. The natives of the Congo Free State are Negroid in race, largely mixed with Hamites of Caucasic blood. The Negroid element, far from homogeneous in physical characteristics, presents a great variety of types, due to intermixture with the true negroes as well as the pygmies north of them. The natives are handsomer than the negro, shorter in stature, less dolichocephalic and prognathic, the nose is more prominent and narrower, and the forehead less convex. Steel-gray eyes prevail in some tribes. In speech there exists over the Congo Basin the most astonishing unity. With the exception of the northern border, where true negro dialects have intruded, the languages all belong to the Bantuan family (from aba, or ba, plurality. and ntu, person, comes ba-ntu, men, people). They are agglutinative, and use the prefix almost exclusively for modifying the meaning of the fundamental term. These languages have scarcely been studied sufficiently for a minute classification. The Congoese, both men and women, are clever in handicraft. They are not mechanical, however, and it is doubtful whether one of them ever invented a machine. Evidences of a Stone Age among them are meagre. Nature having furnished iron ore easily worked in open fires, the Iron Age has had a long history among them. The women are excellent weavers; the men are excessively fond of ornament. Their art sense is most primitive. Their knowledge of nature is confined to practical acquaintance with things of use. In social organization and customs the tribes of the Congo present the greatest varieties. In some of them the tribal bond seems loose, and cannibalism prevails to a dreadful extent. On the larger rivers and under more favorable skies, where there is an infusion of Hamitic blood and the benefit of Hamitic tuition, large empires have arisen, the form of whose government is purely despotic. Under such organization, polygamy and slavery are the legitimate types of family life. To the Bantu mind, the spirit world lies very near the material world. In faith he is an animist of the lowest type-i.e. a hecastotheist; everything is vital, a vague somebody. Moreover, there are more spirits than bodies, and they wander about night and day, benevolent and malevolent. In cult there is no definite organization for social worship, except where the Caucasian race has taught it. Religion is personal, its minister is the sorcerer or wizard, who knows how to call forth this spirit and that, to appease the powers that do harm even with human sacrifices, and to compel the services of the benevolent ones. See Colored Plate of AFRICAN RACES. HISTORY. The Congo Free State was established as a neutral independent sovereignty in 1884. In 1876 King Leopold II. of Belgium had organized, with the cooperation of the leading African explorers and the support of several European governments, the International African Association (q.v.), for the promotion of African exploration and colonization. In the following year Henry M. Stanley called attention to the Congo country, and was sent there by the Association, the expense being defrayed by Leopold. By treaties with native chiefs, rights were acquired to a great area along the Congo, and posts were established. After 1879 the work was under the auspices of the Comité d'Etudes du Haut Congo, which developed into the International Association of the Congo. This organization sought to combine the numerous small territories acquired into one sovereign State, and asked for recognition from the civilized governments. On April 22, 1884, the United States Government, having decided that the cessions by the native chiefs were lawful, recognized the International Association of the Congo as a sovereign independent State, under the title of the Congo Free State, and this example was followed by Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, England, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, and Sweden. The international conference on African affairs which met at Berlin, 1884-85, determined the status of the Congo Free State, which occupies a peculiar position among States because of the conditions surrounding it and the auspices under which it was founded. By the act of the Conference, signed February 26, 1885, the Congo Free State was declared neutral and open to the trade of all nations, the Powers reserving for twenty years the right to decide as to the taxation of imports; the navigation of the Congo and its affluents was to be free, under the supervision of an international commission; religious freedom and equality of treatment of all settlers were guaranteed; and war was declared upon the slave trade. The United States refrained from ratifying this act, on the ground that it would thereby be committed, contrary to its policy, to certain international engagements. The new State was placed under the personal sovereignty of Leopold II., who, by will, four years later, bequeathed it to Belgium. Soon, however, other interests had been acquired in Africa by the Powers, and they correspondingly lost interest in the Congo enterprise, which became less international and more Belgian. On July 31, 1890, the territories of the Congo Free State were declared inalienable, a convention between Belgium and the Congo Free State having already reserved to Belgium the right to annex the Congo State after ten years. In accordance with the tariff reservation in the act of 1885, the international conference at Brussels in 1890 authorized the Congo Free State to levy duties on certain imports, in order to provide the needed revenue. By the Treaty of 1891 the United States established relations with the Congo Free State, providing for commercial intercourse and a consular system, and for the arbitration of any dispute under the treaty. Several separate treaties with the European States having colonial possessions in Africa adjoining the Congo Free State have defined its boundaries. The Belgian Chambers have liberally supported the King in the development of the Congo, and the ultimate transfer of the sovereignty to Belgium was acquiesced in by the European Powers because Belgium, like the Congo Free State itself, is under an international guarantee of neutrality. There is a difference of opinion in regard to the success of the work done by Belgium on the Congo. The slave trade has been restricted, if not wholly suppressed, but the officials have not been wholly successful in dealing with savage tribes in the interior, and it is doubtful to what extent the authority of the Government may be regarded as established. Crities assert that Leopold has regarded the Congo State more as a commercial enterprise to be exploited for profit than as a country to be redeemed for civilization, and that his capital has been insufficient for the expenses of so vast an undertaking. The latter is undoubtedly true. There seems to be no doubt, on the other hand, that intertribal wars and cannibalism, as well as abuses arising from the liquor traffic, have been largely reduced in the territories subject to Leopold. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Stanley. The Congo and the Founding of Its Free State (London, 1885); Burrows, The Land of the Pigmies (London, 1899); Hinde, The Fall of the Congo Arabs (London, 1897); Reeves, "The International Beginnings of the Congo Free State," in Johns Hopkins University Studies (Baltimore, 1894); Boulger, The Congo State and the Growth of Civilization in Central Africa (London, 1898), extremely laudatory of the Belgian work in this field; Raab, Der alte und der neue Kongostaat (Hamburg, 1892); Gochet, Le Congo belge illustré (Liège, 1888); Kassai, La civilisation africaine, 1876-88 (Brussels, 1888); Blanchard, Formation et constitution politique de l'état indépendant du Congo (Paris, 1899); Jozon, L'état indépendant du Congo (ib. 1900); Wauters, L'état indépendant du Congo (Brussels, 1899). See AFRICA. CONGO PEA. See PIGEON PEA. An as CONGO SNAKE. A small, eel-like amphiblegs, and eyes covered with skin. It is found ian (Amphiuma means) with very small two-toed in the rice-fields of the Southern States, where wholly harmless, and burrows in mud in search it is much feared by the common folk. It is logs, etc., a mass of eggs, which have a firm, of fishes, snails, and insect-larvæ. It lays under transparent skin, and are connected by cords into a string; these seem to be guarded and kept moist by the mother. (Bulletin United States phiuma is remarkable as being the only salaNational Museum, No. 31, p. 220.) The Ammander possessing a voice; when angry or excited it gives a clear whistle. See AMPHIUMA. CONGREGATION (Lat. congregatio, from congregare, to flock together, from com-, together +gregare, to flock, from grex, herd). sembly; generally a religious assembly; in its most ordinary sense, an assembly of Christians met in one place for worship. (See CHURCH.) In the Roman Catholic Church it often designates a sort of board of cardinals, prelates, and divines, to which is intrusted the management of some important branch of the affairs of the Church. For example, the Congregation of the Index examines books and decides on their fitness for general perusal. (See INDEX.) The Congregatio de Propaganda Fide consults as to the advancement of the Roman Catholic religion throughout the world. (See PROPAGANDA.) The Congregation of Relics inquires into the genuineness of supposed relics. The Congregation of the Holy Office takes cognizance of heresies, etc. (See INQUISITION.) The Congregation of Rites regulates the festivals and offices of new saints. In CONGREGATIONALISM. A term used in two significations at present. It designates a peculiar system of church organization and government, and as such is rightly claimed by a great family of religious bodies, of which that popularly called 'Congregational' is only one. this usage, the word appropriately describes the polity of the Baptists, the River and the Plym outh Brethren, the Christians, the Disciples of Christ, the Unitarians, and the Hebrew synagogues. It properly describes the organization of considerable groups of Adventists, American Lutherans, and less numerous religious communions, as well as of those churches specifically called by the Congregational name. But the term 'Congregational' is employed no less ap propriately in a second signification, to denote |