The Pools of Silence

The Pools of Silence is a historical novel by H. De Vere Stacpoole. Stacpoole was an Irish writer, here expressing a narrative about the Congo Free State massacres under King Leopold II during the 19th century. Excerpt: «This great river flooding from Stanley Pool and far away beyond, draws with it, like a moving dream, the 52pictures of the roaring rapids and the silent pools, the swamps filled with darkness of vegetation and murderous life; the unutterable loneliness of vast forests. The water brook of the hartbeest and antelope, it brings with it their quiet reflections, just as it brings the awful horn and the pig-like face of the rhinoceros. What things have not slaked their thirst in this quiet water flooding past Matadi—and wallowed in it? Its faint perfume hints at that.»