A few quotes from: Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost. First Mariner Books, New York: 1999. 1. Furthermore, unlike many other great predators of history, from Genghis Khan to the Spanish conquistadors, King Leopold II never saw a drop of blood spilled in anger. He never set foot in the congo. There is something very modern about that, too, as there is about the bomber pilot in the stratosphere, above the clouds, who never hears screams or sees shattered homes or torn flesh" (4). 2. Joseph Conrad found in Africa "the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience" (4). 3. Past the Canary Islands you would enter the Mare Tenebroso : "In the medieval imagination [writes Peter Forbath], this was a region of uttermost dread... where the heavens fling down liquid sheets of flame and the waters boil... where serpent rocks and ogre islands lie in wait for the mariner, where the giant hand of Satan reaches up from the f...