Porto da Lenha dates like Abeokuta from the second decade of the

present century. In Tuckey's time the projection from the

northern bank was known as "Tall Trees," a term common to several

places in the "Oil rivers;" no factories existed, schooners

sailed to Boma for cargo, and dropped down stream as soon as

loaded. From French Point it is distant 40,000 measured metres (=

21 statute miles and 1,615 yards); our charts show 20.50 nautical

miles (= 32,500 metres in round numbers). The river opposite the

projection narrows to a gate barely a mile and a half broad,

whilst the valley stretches some five miles, and the blue hills

inhabited by the Musulungus are clearly visible; the flood rises

four or five feet, and drinking water must be brought from up

stream. The site of the settlement is on the right or northern

bank behind the projection, a slip of morass backed by swamps and

thick growths, chiefly bombax, palm and acacia, lignum vitae, the

mammee-apple and the cork-tree, palmyra, pandanus, and groves of

papyrus. Low and deeply flooded during the rains, the place would

be fatal without the sea-breeze; as it is, the air is exceedingly

unwholesome. There is no quay, the canoe must act gondola; the

wharf is a mere platform with steps, and in places the filthy

drains are not dry even at this season. The length of the station

is about one mile, and of no depth except what is taken up by the

neat and expensive gardens. Eastward or up stream it thins out,

and the foundations give considerable trouble; the inhabitants

are condemned to do beavers' work, to protect the bank with

strong piles, and to heap up earth for a base, whilst, despite

all their toil, the water often finds its way in. The sixteen

houses look well; they are substantial bungalows, built country

fashion, with timber and matting; they have large and shady

verandahs, and a series of inner rooms. Each house has a well-

kept pottage plot, inferior, however, to those up stream.

The tenure of ground here, as at Borna, is by yearly rent to the

two "kings," Nengongo and Nenzalo, each of whom claims a half.

Like the chiefs of Porto Novo, the despot of Dahome, the rulers

of many Nigerian tribes, and even the Fernandian "Bube," these

potentates may not look at the sea nor at the river. Their power

is, therefore, deputed to "linguisters" or interpreters,

linguistele ya Nchinu, "linguist to the king," being the official

titles of these worthies, who massacre the Portuguese language,

and who are empowered to receive "comey" (customs) and rent. The

revenue is composed of three principal items; an ounce ($16) per

head of negro embarked at Porto da Lenha; four per cent, on all

goods sold, and, lastly, a hundred hard dollars monthly ground-

rent--£l92 (English pound symbol) a year. The linguist becomes

more powerful than the chief, who is wholly in his power, and

always receives the best presents. Neagongo's fattore is old

Shimbah, an ignoble aspect with a "kink in his leg;" Mashel or

Machela, a corruption of the Portuguese Maciel, died about two

months aeo: we shall see him disembarked for burial at Boma.

It is evident that the slavers were wrong not to keep hulks like

those of the Bonny River; health would have gained, and the

procedure might have modified negro "sass." The chiefs begin

early morning by going their rounds for drink, and end business

between 7 and 10 A.M. Everywhere on this coast a few hours of

work support a "gentleman;" even the comparatively industrious

and hard-working Egbas rarely do anything after noon. These lords

and masters are fully aware that the white men are their willing

slaves as long as the large profits last. If a glass of watered

rum, which they detect more easily than we do watered milk, be

offered to them, it will be thrown in the donor's face. Every

factory must keep a barrel of spirits ready broached if the

agents would buy eggs and yams, and the poorest negro comes

regularly with his garrafa. The mixed stuff costs per bottle only

a hundred reis (= fourpence), and thoroughly demoralizes the

black world.

We landed at once, sent our letters to M. Monteiro, who

hospitably offered his house, and passed the day quickly enough

in a round of visits. Despite the general politeness and

attention to us, we found a gloom overhanging the place: as at

Whydah, its glories have departed, nor shall they ever return.

The jollity, the recklessness, the gold ounces thrown in handfuls

upon the monte-table, are things of the past: several houses are

said to be insolvent, and the dearth of cloth is causing actual

misery. Palm and ground-nut oil enable the agents only to buy

provisions; the trade is capable of infinite expansion, but it

requires time--as yet it supports only the two non-slaving

houses, English and Dutch. The forty or fifty tons brought in

every month pay them cent, per cent.; the bag of half a hundred

weight being sold for four fathoms of cloth; or two hatchets, one

bottle of rum, and a jug or a plate.

Early next day I went to the English factory for the purpose of

completing my outfit. Unfortunately, Mr. P. Maculloch, the head

agent, who is perfectly acquainted with the river and the people,

was absent, leaving the business in the hands of two "mean

whites," walking buccras, English pariahs. The factory--a dirty

disgrace to the name--was in the charge of a clerk, whom we saw

being rowed about bareheaded through the sun, accompanied by a

black girl, both as far from sober as might be. The cooper, who

was sitting moony with drink, rose to receive us and to weigh out

the beads which I required; under the excitement he had recourse

to a gin-bottle, and a total collapse came on before half the

work was done. Why should south latitude 6°, the parallel of

Zanzibar, be so fatal to the Briton?

At 2.20 P.M. on September 2, we left Porto da Lenha, and passed

Mashel's Creek, on whose right bank is the village of Makatalla;

the charts call it Foomou, and transfer it to the left. Here we

enter upon the riverine archipelago. The great stream before one,

now divides into three parallel branches, separated by long

narrow islands and islets, banks and shallows. The northernmost

channel in our maps, "Maxwell River," is known to Europeans and

natives as Noangwa; Mamballa or the central line is called by the

moderns Nshibúl, and the southern is dubbed by the hydrographer,

"Rio Konio," a truly terrible mistake for Sonho. As a rule, the

Noangwa, though infested during the rains by cruel mosquitoes, is

preferred for the ascent, and the central for dropping down

stream. The maximum breadth of the Congo bed, more than half

island, is here five miles; and I was forcibly reminded of it

when winding through the Dalmatian Archipelago.

The river still maintained its alluvial aspect as we passed along

the right bank. The surface was a stubble strewn with the usual

trees; the portly bombax; the calabash, now naked and of wintry

aspect; and the dark evergreen palmyra, in dots and streaks upon

the red-yellow field, fronted by an edging of grass, whose king,

cyperus papyrus, is crowned with tall heads waving like little

palms. This Egyptian bush extends from the Congo mouth to Banza

Nokki, our landing-place; it grows thickest about Porto da Lenha,

and it thins out above and below: I afterwards observed it in the

sweet water marshes of Syria and the Brazils. We passed sundry

settlements--Loango Pequeno, Loango Grande, and others--and many

canoes were seen plying up and down. On the left or to the south

was nothing but dense reedy vegetation upon the low islands,

which here are of larger dimensions than the northern line. As

evening drew near, the grasshoppers and the tree frogs chirped a

louder song, and the parrots whistled as they winged their rapid

flight high overhead. Presently we passed out of the lower

archipelago, and sighted the first high land closing upon the

stream, rolling hills, which vanished in blue perspective, and

which bore streaks of fire during the dark hours. Our Cabinda

Patron grounded us twice, and even the high night breeze hardly

enabled us to overcome the six-knot current off the narrow, whose

right side is called Ponta da Diabo. Devil's Point is not so

named in the chart: the place is marked "Strong Tide" (No. 1),

opposite Chombae Island, which the natives term Zungá chyá

Bundika, hence probably the name of the village Bemandika (Boma

ndika). At this satanic headland, where the banks form a gate

three miles broad, a man hailed us from the bank; none understood

him, but all made up their minds that he threatened to visit us

during the night.

A light breeze early next morning fortunately freshened as we

approached "Strong Tide" (No. 2). We ran north of the second

archipelago above the gate; south of us lay the "Low Islands" of

the chart, with plantations of beans and tobacco; the peasants

stood to stare like Icelanders, leaning on oblong-bladed paddles

six feet long, or upon alpen-stocks capped with bayonets; the

"scare-crows" were grass figures, with pots for heads and wooden

rattles suspended to bent poles. On the right bank a block of

hills narrows the stream, and its selvage of light green grasses

will contribute to the "floating islands." Higher up, blocks and

boulders of all sizes rise from the vegetation, and prolong

themselves into the shallower waters. There are two distinct

bluffs, the westernmost marked by a tree-clump at its feet, and

between them lies a baylet, where a dozen palms denote the once

dreaded village Bemandika. The second block, 400 to 500 feet

high, bears on its rounded summit the Stone of Lightning, called

by the people Tadi Nzázhí, vulgò, Taddy Enzazzi. The Fiote

language has the Persian letter Zh (j), sounding like the initial

of the French "jour:" so Lander ("On the Course and Termination

of the Niger," "Journal Royal Geographical Society," vol. i. p.

131) says of the Island Zegozhe, that "zh is pronounced like z in

azure." This upright mass, apparently 40 feet high, and seeming,

like the "Lumba" of Kinsembo to rest upon a basement, is very

conspicuous from the east, where it catches the eye as a watch-

tower would. At the bluff-base, a huge slab, an irregular

parallelogram, slopes towards the water and, viewed far up

stream, it passably represents a Kaffir's pavoise. This Fingal's

Shield, a name due to the piety of Mr. George Maxwell, is called

by the French La Pierre Fétiche: it must not be confounded with

our Fetish Rock (Tádi ya Muingu) on the southern bank at the

entrance of the Nshibúl and Sonho branches. I can add nothing to

Tuckey's description or Lieutenant Hawkey's tracing of the rude

figures which distinguish a not unusual feature. Tuckey (p. 97)

calls Fingal's Shield Taddy d'ya M'wangoo, and Professor Smith,

Taddi Moenga (p. 303); the only defect in Lieutenant Hawkey's

sketch is that of exaggerating the bluff, a mere mamelon, one of

many lumps upon a continued level. Both rocks are of the oldest

granite, much weather-worn and mixed and banded with mica and

quartz. M. Charles Konig found in the finer-grained varieties

"minute noble garnets," which also appeared in the mica-slate of

"Gombac" higher up stream, and in the primitive greenstone of

"Boka Embomma."[FN#8]

Beyond this point, where Boma is first sighted, lies the large

marauding village of Twáná. Here also a man shouted to us from

the bank "Muliele! muliele!" for the Portuguese "mulher," one of

the interminable corruptions of the tongue--a polite offer, as

politely declined. The next feature is the Rio Jo Jacaré, a

narrow sedgy stream on the right bank, which, winding northward

through rolling lines of hills, bends westward, and joins, they

say, the Rio Lukullu (Lukallo?) of Cabinda Bay. Men have

descended, I am told, three leagues, but no one has seen the

junction, consequently there may be a portage between the drains.

If not, this is the apex of the greater Congo delta, a false

formation, whose base between Cabinda Bay (S. lat. 5° 25') and

Ambrizette (S. lat. 7° 16') measures 1° 51', equal to 111 direct

geographical miles, whilst its depth inland would be sixty.

Chapter Vii.

Boma.--our Outfit for the Interior

We now reach Boma, the furthest Portuguese factory, about thirty,

usually reckoned thirty-eight, nautical miles from Porta da

Lenha, and a total of 52.50 from French Point.

The upper dépôt of the Congo lies upon the north bank, accidenté

ground, poor, stony, and sandy soil, with rounded, grass-clad

hills, The southern is less broken; there are long slopes and

waves of land which trend in graceful lines, charmingly

diversified, to the uplands, where the old capital, São Salvador,

is situated; and upon the undulating blue ridges, distance behind

distance, appear markings by Nature's hand, which the stranger's

eye can hardly distinguish from villa or village. The view

explains how the old expedition felt "every day more in love with

this beautiful country," The sea-like river wants nothing but

cattle on its banks to justify the description--

"Appunto una scena pastorale, a cui fanno

Quinci il mar, quinci i colli, e d' ogn' intorno

I fior, le piante, e l' ombre, e l' onde, e ‘l cielo.

Unteatro pomposo."

In the centre of the broad stream, whose southern arm is not

visible, are three islets. The western most, backed by a long,

grassy, palm-tasselled bank, is called Zungá chyá Bundiká. This

Chombae Island of the charts is a rocky cone, dark with umbrella-

shaped trees. Its north-eastern neighbour, Simúle Kete, the

Molyneux Island of Mr. Maxwell, the Hekay of Tuckey, and the

Kekay of the chart, contrasts sharply with the yellow stubbles

and the flat lines of Zungá chyá Ngándi. Here, since Tuckey's

time, the trees have made way for grass and stones; the only

remnants are clumps in the south-eastern, which is not only the

highest point, but also the windy and watery direction. On the

Congo course the foul weather is mostly from the "sirocco," where

the African interior is a mass of swamps. At the mouth tornadoes

come down the line of stream from the north-east, and I heard

traditions of the sea-tornado, which blows in shore instead of

offshore as usual. About the close of the last century one or

other of these islands was proposed as a dépôt and settlement,

which a few simple works would convert into a small Gibraltar.

The easternmost Buka, the Booka Embomma of the charts and maps,

will presently be described. In this direction the Zaire assumes

the semblance of a mountain lake, whilst down stream the broad

bosom of the Nshibúl branch forms almost a sea-horizon, with dots

showing where tall, scattered palms spring from the watery

surface. We cannot but admire the nightly effects of the wintry

bush-fires. During the day livid volumed smoke forms cumuli that

conceal their enemy, the sun, and discharge a rain of blacks ten

times the size of Londoners. In the darkened air we see storms of

fire fiercely whirling over the undulating ranges, here sweeping

on like torrents, there delaying, whilst the sheets meet at the

apex, and a giant beard of flame (<Greek> )

flouts the moon. The land must be splendidly grassed after the

rains.

The Boma factories are like those of Porto da Lenha, but humbler

in size, and more resembling the wicker-work native houses. The

river, which up stream will show a flood mark of twelve feet,

here seldom rises above five, and further down three and four;

consequently piles are not required, and the swiftness of the

current keeps off the jacaré. Formerly there were fourteen

establishments, which licit trade in palm oil and ground-nuts,

instead of men, women, and children, have reduced to ten. The air

is sensibly drier and healthier than at the lower settlement, and

apparently there is nothing against the place but deadly ennui

and monotony.

We landed at once, and presented our letters to Sr. Antonio

Vicente Pereira, who at once made us at home: he had seen Goa as

well as Macáo, so we found several subjects in common. The

factory enjoyed every comfort: the poultry yard throve, far

better than at Porto da Lenha; we saw fowls and pigeons,

"Manilla" ducks and ducklings, and a fine peacock from Portugal,

which seemed to enjoy the change. The fish is not so good as that

caught further down, and the natives have a habit of narcotizing

it: the Silurus electricus is exceptionally plentiful. The

farmyard contained tame deer, and a house-dog fierce as a

tethered mastiff; goats were brought whenever wanted, and the

black-faced, thin-tailed sheep gave excellent mutton. Beef was

impossible; the Portuguese, like the natives, care little for

milk, and of the herd, which strangers had attempted to

domesticate, remained only a bull and a cow in very poor

condition--the deaths were attributed to poisonous grass, but I

vehemently suspect Tsetse. A daily "quitanda," or market, held

under the huge calabashes on a hill behind the house, supplied

what was wanted.

Upon Market Hill executions also take place, the criminal being

shot through the heart. M. Pereira's garden produces all that

Porta da Lenha can grow, with less trouble and of a superior

kind. Water-melons, tomatoes, onions, and pimento, or large

pepper (pimentão, siliquastrum, ndungu ya yenéne), useful to

produce "crocodiles' tears;" mint, and parsley flourish

remarkably; turnips are eatable after two months; cabbage and

lettuce, beet, carrot, and endive after three or four. It is a

waste of ground to plant peas; two rows, twelve feet by four,

hardly produce a plateful. Manioc ripens between the sixth and

ninth month, plantains and bananas once a year, cotton and rice

in four months, and maize in forty days--with irrigation it is

easy to grow three annual crops. The time for planting is before

the rains, which here last six weeks to two months, September and

October. The staple of commerce is now the nguba, or ground-nut

(plural, jinguba), which Merolla calls incumba, with sometimes a

little milho (maize), and Calavance beans. Of fruits we find

trellised grapes, pines, and guavas, which, as at Fernando Po,

are a weed. The agrumi, limes, oranges and citrons are remarkably

fine, and hold, as of old, a high place in the simple medicines

of the country. A cup of lime-leaf tea, drunk warm in the

morning, is the favourite emetic and cathartic: even in Pliny's

day we find "Malus Assyria, quam alii vocant medicam (Mediam?,

venenis medetur" (xii. 7). On the Gold Coast and in the Gaboon

region, colic and dysentery are cured by a calabash full of lime-

juice, "laced" with red pepper. The peculiarity of European

vegetables throughout maritime Congo and Angola is the absence of

all flavour combined with the finest appearance; it seems as

though something in the earth or atmosphere were wanting to their

full development. Similarly, though in the upper regions the

climate is delicious, the missionaries could not keep themselves

alive, but died of privation, hardship, and fatigue.

Chapter VIII.

A Visit to Banza Chisalla,

Boma, at the head of the Congo delta, the great dépôt between the

interior and the coast, owes its existence wholly to

"the cruel trade

Which spoils unhappy Afric of her sons."

Father Merolla (1682), who visited it from "Angoij," our

"Cabinda," speaks of it as a pretty large island, tributary to

the Mani-Congo, extremely populous, well supplied with

provisions, and outlaid by islets belonging to the Count of

Sonho. Tuckey's Embomma was an inland banza or town, and the site

of the factories was called Market Point; the Expedition map and

the hydrographic chart term it Loombee, the latter being properly

the name of a large quitanda (market) lying two miles to the

north-west. Early in the present century it is described as a

village of a hundred huts, opposite which trading vessels

anchored under charge of the "Fuka or king's merchant;" no market

was held there, lest, in case of dispute, the royal person might

suffer. Although the main features of our maps are still correct,

there have been great changes in the river-bed between Porto da

Lenha and Boma, especially about the latter place, which should

be transferred from its present site to Lumbi. The broad Chisalla

Creek, which Mr. Maxwell calls Logan, between the northern bank

and the island "Booka Embomma," is now an arm only 200 feet wide.

In fact all the bank about Boma, like the lower delta, urgently

calls for re-surveying.

This part of the river belongs to the "Rei dos Reis," Nessalla,

under whom are some ten chief officers called "kings," who buy

and sell; indeed, Africa knows no other. The title is prostituted

throughout the West Coast, but it is nowhere so degraded as in

the Congo regions; the whites abuse it to flatter the vanity of

the astute negro, who accepts it with a view to results--a "king-

dash" must, of course, be greater than that of a subject. Every

fellow with one black coat becomes a "preese" (prince), and if he

has two he styles himself a "king." Without permission of the

"King of Kings" we could obtain neither interpreter, canoe, nor

crew; a visit to Banza Chisalal was therefore necessary and, as

it would have been vain to ask anything empty-handed, I took with

me a fine spangled cloak, a piece of chintz, and a case of ship's

rum, the whole worth £9.

At 6.30 A.M. on September 5th we set out up stream in a fine

canoe, wall-sided and rather crank, but allowing the comfort of

chairs. She was of Mayumba make, superior to anything built on

the river, and the six men that drove her stood up to pole, and

paddle. Above Boma the hills, which are the outlines of the west

African Ghats, form a graceful semicircle, separated from the

water by a flat terrace garnished with little villages and tree-

islets. On the north bank are many of the crater-like sinks which

dot the coast from the Gaboon to Loango. We hugged the right side

to avoid the rapid swirl; there was no backwater at the points,

and hard work was required to prevent our being swept against the

boulders of gneiss, schiste, and pudding-stone edging the shores

and stretching into the stream. Here the fish is excellent as at

Porto cla Lenha, and we found the people catching it in large

spoon-shaped basins: I enquired about the Peixe mulher (woman-

fish), the French sirène, which old missioners describe as an

African mermaid, not exactly as she appeared to the "lovely lord

of Colonsay," and which Barbot figures with "two strutting

breasts." He makes the flesh taste like pork, and tells us that

the small bones of the hand were good for gravel, whilst

bracelets made of the left rib were worn near the heart, to stop

bleeding. This manatus, like the elephant and the hippopotamus,

has long disappeared before the gun.

After some three quarters of an hour we reached the entrance of

Chisalla Creek, which is the northernmost branch of the main

stream. On the left (north) was a plain showing traces of a large

village, and we sighted our first grass-island--a compact mass of

fibrous, earth-washed roots and reedy vegetation, inhabited by

serpents and ardeine birds. To the right, or southward, rises the

tall island of Boma, rocky and wooded, which a narrow channel

separates from its eastern neighbour, Chisalla Islet. The latter

is the royal Pere la Chaise, the graves being kept carefully

concealed; white men who have visited the ground to shoot

antelope have had reason to regret the step. Here also lie three

officers of the Congo Expedition-- Messrs. Galwey, Tudor, and

Cranch--forgotten, as Gamboa and Reitz at Mombasah.

The banks of the winding creek were beautified with the

malaguetta pepper, the ipomsea, the hibiscus, and a yellow flower

growing upon an aquatic plant like a magnified water-cress.

Animal life became somewhat less rare; we saw sandpipers, hawks,

white and black fish-eagles, and long-legged water-hens, here

supposed to give excellent sport. An embryo rapid, formed by a

gneiss-band connecting the north bank with the islet, delayed us,

and the rocks on the right showed pot-holes dug by the poling-

staves; during the rains canoes from Boma avoid this place, and

seek fuel down stream. After a total of two hours and a quarter

we reached Banza Chisalla: it is a "small country," in African

parlance, a succursal of Boma proper, the Banza on the hills

beyond the reedy, grassy plain. The site is charming--a flat

palm-orchard backed by an amphitheatre of high-rolling ground,

and the majestic stream approaches it through a gate, whose right

staple is the tall Chisalla, and whose left is a rocky islet with

outlying needles.

We ascended the river-bank, greeted by the usual accidents of an

African reception; the men shouted, the women rushed screaming

under cover, and the children stood howling at the horrible

sight. A few paces placed us at the "palace," a heap of huts,

surrounded by an old reed-fence. The audience-room was a trifle

larger than usual, with low shady eaves, a half-flying roof, and

a pair of doorways for the dangerous but indispensable draught; a

veteran sofa and a few rickety chairs composed the furniture, and

the throne was known by its boarded seat, which would have been

useful in taking a "lamp-bath."

Presently entered the "Rei dos Reis," Nessalla: the old man,

whose appearance argued prosperity, was en grande tenue, the

State costume of Tuckey's, not of Merolla's day. The crown was

the usual "berretta" (night-cap) of open work; the sceptre, a

drum-major's staff; the robes, a "parochial" beadle's coat of

scarlet cloth, edged with tinsel gold lace. His neck was adorned

with hair circlets of elephants' tails, strung with coral and

beads; the effect, to compare black with white, was that of Beau

Brummell's far-famed waterfall tie, and the head seemed supported

as if on a narrow-rimmed "charger." The only other ornament was a

broad silver ring welded round the ankle, and drawing attention

to a foot which, all things considered, was small and well

shaped.

Some of the chiefs had copper rings of home manufacture, with

neatly cut raised figures. The king held in his right hand an

article which at first puzzled us--a foot's length of split reed,

with the bulbous root attached. He may not, like his vassals,

point with the finger, and without pointing an African can hardly

give an order. Moreover, the Sangálávú or Malaguetta pepper

(Amomum granum Paradisi), fresh or old, is not only a toothstick,

but a fetish of superior power when carried on journeys.

Professor Smith writes "Sangala woo," and tells us that it was

always kept fresh in the house, to be rolled in the hands when

invoking the Fetish during war-time; moreover, it was chewed to

be spat at the enemy. Possibly he confuses it with the use as a

tooth-stick, the article which Asia and Africa prefer to the

unclean hog's- bristle brush of Europe.

On the left of the throne sat the Nchinu, or "second king,"

attired in a footman's livery of olive-coloured cloth, white-worn

at the seams, and gleaming with plated buttons, upon which was

the ex-owner's crest--a cubit arm.

The stranger in Africa marvels why men, who, as Dahome shows, can

affect a tasteful simplicity, will make themselves such "guys."

When looking at these caricatures, he is tempted to read

(literally) learned Montesquieu, "It is hardly to be believed

that God, who is a wise being, should place a soul, especially a

good soul, in such a black, ugly body," and to consider the few

exceptions as mere "sporting plants." But the negro combines with

inordinate love of finery the true savage taste--an imitative

nature,--and where he cannot copy the Asiatic he must ape the

European; only in the former pursuit he rises above, in the

latter he sinks below his own proper standard. Similarly, as a

convert, he is ennobled by El Islam; in rare cases, which may be

counted upon the fingers, he is civilized by Christianity; but,

as a rule, the latter benefits him so far only as it abolishes

the barbarous and murderous rites of Paganism.

But there is also a sound mundane reason which causes the African

"king" to pose in these cast-off borrowed plumes. Contrast with

his three-quarter nude subjects gives him a name; the name

commands respect; respect increases "dash;" and dash means

dollars. For his brain, dense and dead enough to resist

education, is ever alive and alert to his own interest; whilst

the concentration of its small powers prevails against those who,

in all other points, are notably his superiors. The whole of

negro Africa teaches this lesson. "The Ethiopians," says Father

Merolla, "are not so dull and stupid as is commonly imagined, but

rather more subtle and cunning than ordinary;" and he adds an

instance of far-sighted treachery, which would not have been

despicable even in a Hindoo.

A desultory palaver "came up;" the soul of the meeting not being

present. M. Pissot explained my wish to "take walk and make

book," carefully insisting upon the fact that I came to spend,

not to gain money. The grizzled senior's face, before crumpled

like a "wet cloak ill laid up," expanded at these last words, and

with a grunt, which plainly meant "by' m' by," he rose, and

retired to drink-- a call of nature which the decencies of

barbarous dignity require to be answered in private. He returned

accompanied by his nephew, Manbuku Prata (pronounced Pelata), the

"Silver Chief Officer," as we might say, Golden Ball. The title

is vulgarly written Mambuco; the Abbé Proyart prefers Ma-nboukou,

or "prince who is below the Makaia in dignity." The native name

of this third personage was Gidifuku. It was a gorgeous

dignitary: from the poll of his night-cap protruded a dozen

bristles of elephant's tail hair, to which a terminal coral gave

the graceful curve of a pintado's crest, and along his ears, like

the flaps of a travelling casquette, hung two dingy little

mirrors of talc from Cacongo, set in clumsy frames of ruddled

wood. Masses of coral encircled his neck, and the full-dress

naval uniform of a French officer, with epaulettes of stupendous

size, exposed a zebra'd guernsey of equivocal purity. A long

black staff, studded with broad-headed brass beads, served to

clear the room of the lieges, who returned as fast as they were

turned out--the baton was evidently not intended to be used

seriously.

But the Manbuku Prata is not a mere "Punch in a puppet show." His

face expresses more intelligence and resolution than usual, and

his Portuguese is not the vile article of the common trader. He

means business. When other chiefs send their "sons," that is

their slaves, to fight, he leads them in person--venite, non ite.

The French "Emigration Libre" put 30,000 dollars into his pocket,

and he still hopes against hope to ship many a cargo for the

Banana factory. He has some 300 armed serviles at Chinímí and

Lámbá, two villages perched like condors' nests upon hills

commanding the river's northern bank, and, despite the present

dearth of "business," he still owns some 100,000 francs in cloth

and beads, rum and gunpowder.

As the "Silver Minister" took his seat upon the ground before the

king, all removed their caps with a simultaneous grunt and

performed the "Sákilá" or batta-palmas; this hand-clapping must

be repeated whenever the simplest action is begun or ended by

king or chief. Monteiro and Gamitto (pp. 101 et seg.) refer to

the practice everywhere on the line of country which they

visited: there it seems to be even a more ceremonious affair than

in the Congo. The claps were successively less till they were

hardly audible; after a pause five or six were given, and the

last two or three were in hurried time, the while without

pronouncing a word. The palaver now opened steadily with a drink:

a bottle of trade "fizz" was produced for the white man, and rum

for his black congeners; then the compliment of healths went all

round. After this we fell to work at business. By dint of

abundant wrangling and with an immense display of suspicion,

natural under the circumstances, it was arranged that the king

should forward me in a couple of his own canoes to Banza Nokki,

the end of river navigation, as we were told, and falsely told;

in my turn I was to pay goods valued about £6, at least three

times the usual tariff. They consisted of fourteen red caps, as

many "sashes," and fifty-two fathoms of cloth for the crew; ten

Peças de lei or Chiloes for each interpreter, and two pieces for

the canoes. I should have given four fathoms for each man and the

same for each boat. The final scene was most gratifying to the

African mind: I solemnly invested old Nessala with the grand

cloak which covered his other finery; grinning in the ecstasy of

vanity, he allowed his subjects to turn him round and round, as

one would a lay figure, yet with profound respect, and, lastly,

he retired to charm his wives.

This part of the negotiations ended with presenting some "satin

stripe" and rum to the Nchinu and Manbuku Prata, and with shaking

hands--a dangerous operation. The people are cleanly; they wash

when rising, and before as well as after every meal; they are

always bathing, yet from prince to pauper, from baby to grey

beard, they are affected with a psora known by its Portuguese

name, "sarnas." The Congo "fiddle" appears first between the

articulations of the fingers, and bleaches the hands and wrists

as if it were leprosy. Yet I did not see a single case of true

lepra Arabum, or its modifications, the huge Barbadoes leg

(elephantiasis), and the sarcoma scrotale and sarcocele of

Zanzibar and East Africa. From the extremities the gale extends

over the body, especially the shins, and the people, who appear

in the perpetual practice of scalpturigo, attribute it to the

immoderate use of palm wine. I observed, however, that Europeans,

in the river, who avoid the liquor, are hardly ever free from

this foul blood-poison, and a jar of sulphur mixture is a common

article upon the table. Hydrocele is not unfrequent, but hardly

so general as in the Eastern Island; one manner of white man, a

half caste from Macáo, was suffering with serpigo, and boasted of

it.

All predicted to me a similar fate from the "botch of Congo," but

happily I escaped. Indeed, throughout the West African Coast,

travellers risk "craw-craw," a foul form of the disease, seen on

board the African steamers. Kru-men touching the rails of the

companion ladders, have communicated it to passengers, and these

to their wives and families.

The town was neat and clean as the people. The houses were built

upon raised platforms, and in the little fenced fields the

Cajanus Indicus vetch was conspicuous. In Hindostani it is called

Thur, or Doll-plant, by the Eastern Arab Turiyan, in Kisawahili

Mbarazi, in Angola voando (Merolla's Ouuanda), and in the Brazil

Guandu.[FN#9] The people had lost their fear, and brought their

exomphalous little children, who resembled salmon fry in the

matter of umbilical vesicles, to be patted by the white man; a

process which caused violent screams and in some cases nearly

induced convulsions-- the mothers seemed to enjoy the horror

displayed by their hopefuls. There is little beauty amongst the

women, and settled Europeans prefer Cabinda girls. The latter

have perhaps the most wiry and wig-like hair on the whole West

African coast, where all hair is more or less wiry and wig- like.

Cloth was less abundant in the village than a smear of red; the

bosom even after marriage was unveiled, and the rule of fashion

was shown by binding it tightly down. The rich wore armlets and

leglets of staircase rods, brass and copper, like the metal

gaiters and gauntlets of the Gaboon River. The only remarkable

object was the Quesango, a wooden effigy of a man placed in the

middle of the settlement: Battel mentions it amongst the "Gagas

or Guides," and Barbot terms it "Likoku Mokisi." Three faint

hurrahs, a feeble African echo of England like the "hoch!" of

Vienna, and the discharge of a four- pounder were our parting

honours.

We returned viâ the gateway between the two islets. On the south-

eastern flank of Chisalla is a dwarf precipice called Mbondo la

Zumba and, according to the interpreters, it is the Lovers' Leap

of Tuckey. But its office must not be confounded with that

attributed to the sinister-looking scaur of Leucadia; here the

erring wives of the Kings of Boma and their paramours found a

Bosphorus. The Commander of the First Congo Expedition applies

the name to a hanging rock on the northern shore, about eighteen

miles higher up stream. A portentous current soon swept us past

Père la Chaise, and shortly after noon we were comfortably at

breakfast with Sr. Pereira.

During the last night we had been kept awake by the drumming and

fifing, singing and shouting, weeping and howling, pulling at

accordions and striking the monotonous Shingungo. Merolla names

this cymbal Longa, and describes it justly as two iron bells

joined by an arched bar: I found it upon the Tanganyika Lake, and

suffered severely from its monotonous horrors. Monteiro and

Gamitto (p. 232) give an illustration of what is known in the

Cazembe's country as "Gomati:" The Mchua or gong-gong of Ashanti

has a wooden handle connecting the cones. Our palhabote had

brought up the chief Mashel's bier, and to-day we have the

satisfaction of seeing it landed. A kind of palanquin, covered

with crimson cloth and tinsel gold like a Bombay "Tabút," it had

three horns or prominences, two capped with empty black bottles,

and the central bearing the deceased's helmet; it was a fancy

article, which might have fitted him of Gath, with a terrific

plume and the spoils of three horses in the sanguine hues of war.

Although eight feet long by five broad, the coffin was said to be

quite full. The immense respect which the Congoese bear to their

rulers, dead as well as alive, prevented my verifying the

accounts of the slave dealers. I knew that the chief who had died

at Kinsembo, had been dried on a bamboo scaffolding over a slow

fire, and lay in state for some weeks in flannel stockings and a

bale of baize, but these regions abound in local variations of

custom. Some declared, as we find in Proyart, that the corpse had

been mummified by the rude process of smoking; others that it had

been exposed for some days to the open air, the relatives sitting

round to keep off the flies till preliminarily bandaged.

According to Barbot (iii. 23), the people of Fetu on the Gold

Coast and the men of Benin used to toast the corpse on a wooden

gridiron; and the Vei tribe, like the Congoese, still fumigate

their dead bodies till they become like dried hams. This rude

form of the Egyptian rite is known to East as well as to West

Africa: Kimera, late King of Uganda, was placed upon a board

covering the mouth of a huge earthern pot heated from below.

Instances are known of bodies in the Congo region remaining a

year or two above ground till the requisite quantity of fine

stuffs has been procured--the larger the roll the greater the

dignity, and sometimes the hut must be pulled down before it can

be removed. Here, as on the Gold Coast, we find the Jewish

practice recorded by Josephus of converting the tomb into a

treasury; in the case of Mashel some £600 in gold and silver,

besides cloth, beads, and ornaments, shared, they say, his fate.

The missionaries vainly fought against these customs, which are

evidently of sentimental origin--

"Now bring the last sad gifts, with these

The last lament be said;

Let all that pleased and still may please

Be buried with the dead."

The bier was borne by slaves, as the head men would not even look

at it; at times the carriers circled round, as if to deprecate

the idea that they were hurrying it to its bourne. The grave was

a pit fifteen to twenty feet deep, cut like a well, covered with

stones to keep out wild beasts, and planted round with the

cylindrical euphorbia by way of immortelles.

I could not find out if the Congoese still practise the vivi-

sepulture so common on the Western Coast--the "infernal

sacrifices of man's flesh to the memory of relatives and

ancestors," as the old missioners energetically expressed

themselves. According to Battel, the "Giaghi" corpse was seated

as if alive in a vault; in this "infernal and noisome dungeon"

were placed two wives with their arms broken, and thus there was

no danger of the Zumbi or ghost killing men by reapparition. When

the king of Old Calabar died, a huge hole was dug, with an off

chamber for two sofas, one of which supported the dressed and

ornamented corpse. Personal attendants, such as the umbrella,

sword, and snuff-box bearers, holding the insignia of their

offices, together with sundry virgins, were either slaughtered or

thrown in alive, a rude in pace. Quantities of food and trade

goods, especially coppers, were heaped up; after which the pit

was filled and the ground was levelled. The less wealthy sort of

"gentlemen" here are placed in smaller graves near the villages;

and the slaves are still "buried with the burial of an ass,"--

cast forth into the bush.

Yet, by way of showing themselves kind to the dead, the Congoese

are "commonly very cruel to the living." Lately, a chief, called

from his wealth, "Chico de Ouro" (Golden Frank) died somewhat

suddenly. The Nganga or medicine man who, on such occasions, here

as elsewhere, has the jus vitæ et necis, was called in; he

charged one of the sons with parricide by witchcraft, and the

youth was at once pierced by the bayonets of his brothers.

"Golden Frank" was peculiar in his ways. He used to entertain the

factors at dinner, imitating them from soup to cheese; his only

objections were to tea, and to drinking toasts out of anything

but the pet skull of an enemy: it was afterwards placed upon his

grave.

Boma is no longer "the emporium of the Congo Empire," if it ever

did deserve that title. Like Porto da Lenha, it is kept up by the

hopes of seeing better days, which are not doomed to dawn. Even

at the time of my visit some 400 to 500 negroes were under guard

in a deserted factory, and, whilst we were visiting Nessalla,

they were marched down to bathe. When I returned from the

cataracts, the barracoon contained only fifty or sixty, the rest

having been shunted off to some unguarded point. At a day's

notice a thousand, and within a week 3,000 head could be procured

from the adjoining settlements, where the chattels are kept at

work. As in Tuckey's day, "those exported are either captives in

war or condemned criminals." During the Free Emigration as much

as $80 have been paid per man, a large sum for "Congoes:" whilst

a cargo of 500 "Minas" (Guinea negroes) loses at most 20 per

cent., these less hardy gangs seldom escape without at least

double the deaths by dysentery or some other epidemic. Now they

are freely offered for $10 to $20, but there are no buyers; the

highest bid of which I heard was $100 for a house-"help."

The slave-traders in the Congo look upon their employment as did

the contrabandist in the golden days of smuggling; the "free

sailor" whom Marryatt depicts, a law-breaker, yet not less a very

pleasant, companionable fellow. The unhappy differences between

the late British Commissioner for Loanda and the Judge of the

mixed Court, Sr. José Julio Rodriguez, who followed his enemy to

the grave on April 12, 1863, rendered São Paulo anything but a

pleasant place to an English resident; but the rancour had not

extended to the Congo, and, so far from showing chagrin, the

agents declared that without the "coffin squadron," negroes would

have been a mere drug in the market. The only déplaisir is that

which I had already found in a Gaboon factory, the excessive

prevalence of petty pilfering. The Moleques or house-boys steal

like magpies, even what is utterly useless to them; these young

clerks of St. Nicholas will scream and writhe, and confess and

beg pardon under the lash, and repeat the offence within the

hour: as they are born serviles, we cannot explain the habit by

Homer's,

"Jove fixed it certain that whatever day

Makes man a slave takes half his worth away."

One of our watches was found in the pocket of a noble

interpreter, who, unabashed, declared that he placed it there for

fear of its being injured; and the traders are constantly

compelled to call in the Fetishman for the protection of their

stores against the prigging chiefs. Yet in Tuckey's time there

was only one thief at Boma, a boy who stole a knife, confessed,

and restored it. During a month's residence amongst the pagans of

the interior, where the houses swarmed with serviles, and where

my outfit, which was never locked up, must have represented a

plate-chest in England, not the smallest article was "found

missing," nor could anything be touched except by collusion with

the head man.

Chapter IX.

Up the Congo to Banza Nokki.

For a wonder the canoes came in time, and, despite their mat-

sails, we could not complain of them. There were twelve paddlers

two for the stem, and two for the stern of each craft, under a

couple of interpreters, Jotakwassi and Nchama-Chamvu, who were

habited in European frock-coats of broadcloth, and in native

terminations mostly "buff." Our excellent host bade us a kindly

adieu, with many auguries of success--during the last night the

frogs had made a noise in the house. Briefly, we set out on

September 6th.

In the forty-five miles between Boma, where we enter the true

trough of the Congo, and the landing-place of Banza Nokki below

the cataracts, there are half-a-dozen reaches, the shortest of

three, the longest of fifteen miles. They are not straight, as

upon the chart; the windings of the bed exclude direct vision,

and the succession of points and bays suggest, like parts of the

Rhine, a series of mountain-tarns. The banks show the high-water

level in a low shelf, a ribbon of green, backed by high rolling

hills, rounded and stony, with grass dry at this season; the

formation is primitive, and the material of the lower bed has

been held to "prove the probability that the mountains of

Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, and other adjacent parts of South

America, were primevally connected with the opposite chains, that

traverse the plains of Congo and Loango." In parts the rocks fall

bluff into the river, and here the current rushes past like a

mill-race without a shadow of backwater. The heights are

intersected by gullies and ravines, of which I counted sixty-nine

on the right and fifty-four on the left bank; many of them are

well wooded, and others are fronted by plains of the reeds and

flags, which manufacture floating islands, cast loose, like those

of the Niger, about the end of July by the "Malka" rains. About a

dozen contained running water: Captain Tuckey did not see one

that would turn a mill in August and September; but in November

and December all these fiumaras will discharge torrents.

The breadth of the entroughed bed varies from 700 yards to two

miles where it most dispreads itself. The current increases from

the normal three to five knots in rare places; the surface loses

the glassiness of the lower section, and at once shows the

boiling and swirling which will be noticed near the cataracts.

The shores are often foul, but the midway is mostly clear, and,

where sunken rocks are, they are shown by whirlpools. The flow of

the tide, or rather the damming up of the lower waters between

Porto da Lenha and the mouth, causes a daily rise, which we found

to measure about a foot; thus it assists in forming a treble

current, the rapid down-flow in the Thalweg being subtended by a

strong backwater on either side carrying a considerable portion

in a retrograde direction, and showing a sensible reflux; this

will continue as far as the rapids. In the Amazonas the tides are

felt a hundred leagues from the mouth; and, whilst the stream

moves seawards, the level of the water rises, proving an evident

under-current. Mr. Bates has detected the influence of oceanic

tides at a point on the Tapajos, 530 miles distant from its

mouth, such is the amazing flatness of the country's profile:

here we find the reverse.

The riverine trough acts as wind-conductor to a strong and even

violent sea-breeze; on the lower section it begins as a ground-

current--if the "bull" be allowed--a thin horizontal stratum near

the water, it gradually curves and slides upwards as it meets the

mountain flanks, forming an inverted arch, and extending some

2,000 to 3,000 feet above the summits. At this season it is a

late riser, often appearing about 3 P.M., and sometimes its

strength is not exhausted before midnight. The brown water,

grass-sheeted at the sides, conceals the bright yellow sand of

the bed; when placed in a tumbler it looks clear and colourless,

and the taste is perfectly sweet--brackishness does not extend

far above Porto da Lenha. Yet at Boma the residents prefer a

spring near the factories, and attribute dysentery to the use of

river-water. According to Mr. George Maxwell, the supply of the

lower bed has the quality of rotting cables, and the same

peculiarity was attributed to the Tanganyika.

Of late years no ship has ventured above Boma, and boats have

ascended with some difficulty, owing to the "buffing stream." Yet

there is no reason why the waters should not be navigated, as

proposed in 1816, by small steamers of good power, and the strong

sea-breeze would greatly facilitate the passage. In older and

more enterprising days merchant-schooners were run high up the

Zaire. The master of a vessel stated to Tuckey that he "had been

several voyages up to the distance of 140 miles from the mouth"

without finding any difficulty.

Our course passed by Banza Chisalla where, as we had paid double,

there was a vain attempt to make us pay treble. Travelling up the

south-eastern reach, we passed a triangular insulated rock off

the southern bank, and then the "diabolitos" outlying Point Kilu,

opposite Banza Vinda on the other side. A second reach winding to

the north-east showed on the right Makula (Annan) River, and a

little further Munga-Mungwa (Woodhouslee); between them is the

terminus of the São Salvador road. On the northern bank where the

hills now become rounded mountains, 1,500 feet above the stream,

perches Chinimi the village of Manbuku Prata, who expects canoes

here to await his orders; and who was sorely offended because I

passed down without landing. The next feature of the chart,

Matádi "Memcandi," is a rocky point, not an island. Turning a

projection, Point Makula (Clough Corner), we entered No. 3, elbow

bending southeast; on its concave northern side appeared the

settlement Vinda la Nzádi. This is the Vinda le Zally of Tuckey;

on the chart Veinde len Zally, and according to others Vinda de

Nzadi, or village of the Zaire River. It is probably the "Benda"

of the Introduction (p. xxxiv.); and as b and v sound alike in

Fiote, Cabinda, Cabenda or Kabendah is evidently Ca-vinda--great

village.

Our terminus that day was the usual resting-place of travellers,

"Mfumba" behind Nkumungu (Point) Kaziwa, a mass of granitoid

slabs, with a single tree for landmark. Opposite us was Sandi ya

Nzondo, which others call Sanga ya Ngondo; in the chart this one-

tree island is written "Catlo Zonda," it is the first of two

similar formations. Oscar Rock, its western (down stream)

neighbour, had shared the fate of "Soonga lem Paccula," (Zunga

chya Makula?) a stone placed in the map north-east of the Makula

or Annan debouchure; both were invisible, denoted only by swirls

in the water. We had taken seven hours to cover what we easily

ran down in two, and we slept comfortably with groan of rock and

roar of stream for lullaby.

September 7.--Our course now lay uninterruptedly along the left

bank, where the scenery became yet more Rhine-like, in natural

basins, reaches on the chart: here and there rugged uprocks

passably simulated ruined castles. The dwarf bays of yellow sand

were girt by a goodly vegetation, the palm and the calabash only

telling us that we were in Africa.

Our men pointed to the work of a Nguvu or hippopotamus, which

they say sometimes attacks canoes; they believe with Tuckey that

the river-horses cause irregularity of soundings by assembling

and trampling deep holes in the bed; but the Ngadi is a proof

that they do not, as M. du Chaillu supposes, exclusively affect

streams with shoals and shallows. The jacaré (crocodile) is known

especially to avoid the points where the current sweeps swiftly

past, yet no one will hang his hand over the canoe into the

water: we did not see any of these wretches, but at Boma Coxswain

Deane observed one about sixteen feet long.

Curls of smoke arose from the mountain-walls of the trough,

showing that the bush was being burned; and spired up from a

grassy palm-dotted plain, between two rocky promontories on the

left bank, the site of the Chacha or Wembo village: in a gap of

the herbage stood half-finished canoes, and a man was bobbing

with rod, line, and float. After an hour's paddling we halted for

breakfast under "Alecto Rock," a sheer bluff of reddish schist,

150 feet high; here a white trident, inverted and placed ten feet

above the water, showed signs of H.M. Ship "Alecto," (late)

Captain Hunt, whose boat passed up in 1855. The people call it

Chimbongolo. The river is now three quarters of a mile wide, and

the charming cove shows the brightest of sands and the densest of

vegetation waving in the cool land-wind.

Resuming our way at 9 P.M., we passed on the left "Scylla Rocks,"

then a wash, and beyond them four high and tree-clad heads off

the right bank. Three are islets, the Zunga chya Gnombe--of the

bull--formed by a narrow arm passing round them to the north:

other natives called them Zunga chya Umbinda, but all seem to

differ. These are the Gombac Islands of the chart, Hall Island

being the easternmost, and the northern passage between the three

horns and the main is called by us "Gombac Creek." Half an hour

beyond was a mass of villages, in a large, grassy low-land of the

left bank, girt by mountains higher than those down stream. Some

outlying huts were called by the interpreters Suko Nkongo, and

formed the "beach town" of large interior settlements, Suko do

Wembo and Mbinda. Others said Lasugu or Sugo Nkongo, the Sooka

Congo of the charts: others again for "Mbinda" proposed "Mpeso

Birimba." This is probably the place where according to the mail

of November, ‘73, diamonds were found, and having been submitted

to "Dr. Basham (Dr. Bastian before mentioned), Director of the

Museum of Berlin," were pronounced to be of very fine water. It

is possible that the sandstone may afford precious stones like

the itacolumite of the Brazil ("Highlands of the Brazil," i.

380), but the whole affair proved a hoax. In mid-stream rose No.

2, "One-Tree Island," Zunga chya Nlemba or Shika chya Nzondo; in

Tuckey it is called Boola Beca or Blemba (the husband) Rock; the

old ficus dying at the head, was based upon a pedestal which

appeared groin-shaped from the east. Here the mirage was very

distinct, and the canoes seemed to fly, not to swim--

"As when far out of sea a fleet descried,

Hangs in the clouds."

The northern bank shows a stony projection called by Maxwell

"Fiddler's Elbow;" it leads to the fourth reach, the second of

the north-eastern series; and the breadth of the stream, once

more a mountain lake, cannot be less than two miles.

I foresaw trouble in passing these settlements. Presently a

snake-like war canoe with hawser-holes like eyes, crept out from

the southern shore; a second fully manned lay in reserve, lurking

along the land, and armed men crowned the rocks jutting into the

stream. We were accosted by the first craft, in which upon the

central place of honour sat Mpeso Birimbá, a petty chief of Suko

Nkongo; a pert rascal of the French factory, habited in a red

cap, a green velvet waistcoat, and a hammock-shaped tippet of

pine-apple fibre; his sword was a short Sollingen blade. The

visit had the sole object of mulcting me in rum and cloth, and my

only wish was naturally to expend as little as possible in mere

preliminaries. The name of Manbuku Prata was duly thrown at him

with but little effect: these demands are never resisted by the

slave-dealers. After much noise and cries of "Mwendi" (miser,

skin-flint) on the part of the myrmidons, I was allowed to

proceed, having given up a cloth twenty-four yards long, and I

felt really grateful to the "trade" which had improved off all

the other riverine settlements. Beyond this point we saw nothing

but their distant smokes.

Before the second north-eastern reach, the interpreters exclaimed

"Yellala falla"--"the cataract is speaking," and we could

distinctly hear the cheering roar. The stream now assumed the

aspect of Niagara below the Falls, and the circular eddies

boiling up from below, and showing distinct convexity, suggested

the dangerous "wells" of the northern seas. Passing the "Three

Weird Sisters," unimportant rocks off, the right bank, we entered

upon the remarkably long stretch, extending upwards of five

miles, and, from its predominating growth, we proposed to call it

"Palmyra Reach." The immediate river banks were clad with sedge,

and the broad leaves of the nymphæa, a plant like the calamus of

Asia, but here used only as a toothpick, began to oust the rushy

and flaggy growth of the lower bed. The pink balls of the spinous

mimosa, and bright flowers, especially the convolvulus and

ipomaea, illuminated the dull green. The grassy land at the foot

of the mountains was a mere edging, faced by outlying rocks, and

we were shown the site of a village long ago destroyed.

The Nteba, or palmyra nobilis, mixed here and there with a

glorious tamarind, bombax or calabash, forms a thin forest along

the reach, and rarely appears upon the upper hills, where we

should expect it. The people use both fruit and wine, preferring,

however, the liquor of the Ebah (oil palm-tree), and the autumnal

fires can hardly affect so sturdy a growth. The other trees are

the mfuma, cotton-tree or bombax (Pentandria truncospinoso,

Smith), much valued as a canoe: Merolla uses Mafuma, a plural

form, and speaks of its "wonderful fine wool." The wild figs show

glorious stature, a truly noble growth, whose parents were sun

and water.

The birds were lank black clivers (Plotus), exceedingly wild; the

African roller (Coracias); halcyons of several species,

especially a white and black kingfisher, nimble and comely; many

swallows, horn-bills, and wild pigeons which made the bush

resound; ardeine birds, especially a heron, like the large Indian

"kullum;" kites, crows, "whip-poor-wills," and a fine haliaetus,

which flies high and settles upon the loftiest branches. One of

these eagles was shot, after a gorge of the electric fish here

common; its coat was black and white, and the eyes yellow, with

dark pupils. Various lizards ran over the rocks; and we failed to

secure a water-snake, the only specimen seen on the whole trip.

About noon we struggled past Point Masalla, our "Diamond Rock," a

reef ending in a triangular block, towering abruptly, and showing

by drift-wood a flood-line now twelve feet high. There are

several of these "bench-marks;" and the people declare that after

every few years an unusual freshet takes place. Here the current

impinges directly upon the rocks, making a strong eddy. "They die

each time," said the interpreters, as the canoemen, with loud

shouts of "Vai ou nao Vai? Vai sempre! Vai direito, ya mondele!"

and "Arister," a mariner's word, after failing to force the way,

tumbled overboard, with a hawser of lliana to act as tow-line.

"Vai direito," according to Father Ciprani, also applies to a

"wonderful bird, whose song consists in these plain words;" and

"Mondele" is synonymous with the Utangáni of the Gaboon and the

East African Muzungu, a white man.

This bend was in former days the terminus of canoe travel up

stream. Grisly tales of mishap are told; and even now a musketry

salute is fired when boats pass without accident. Beyond Diamond

Rock is a well-wooded, stony cove, "Salan Kunkati:" Captain

Tuckey makes this the name of the Diamond Rock, and translates it

"the strong feather." Quartz, before in lines and bands, now

appears in masses: the "Coal Rock," which the chart places near

Insála (Bechope Point) on the northern bank, was probably

submerged. High cliffs towered above us, and fragments which must

have weighed twenty tons had slipped into the water; one of them

bore an adansonia, growing head downwards.

The next feature was Npunga Bay, low and leek-green, between the

blue-brown water, here some 700 yards broad, and the yellow sun-

burnt trough-sides. A little further on, at 2 P.M., the canoe-men

halted beyond a sandy point with two large "Bondeiro" trees, and

declared their part of the bargain to have been fulfilled.

"Bonderro" is a corruption of the Lusitanianized imbundeiro, the

calabash, or adansonia (digitata?): the other baobab is called

nkondo, probably the Aliconda and Elicandy of Battel and old

travellers, who describe the water-tanks hollowed in its huge

trunk, and the cloth made from the bark fibre. Thus the "Condo

Sonio" of the Chart should be "Nkondo Sonho," the latter a proper

name. It is seldom that we find trees turned to all the uses of

which they are capable: the Congo people despise the nutritious

and slightly laxative flour of the "monkey bread," and the young

leaves are not used as pickles; the bast is not valued for cloth

and ropes, nor are the boles cut into cisterns.

As will be seen, we ought to have insisted upon being paddled to

Kala cliff and bight, the Mayumba Bay of the Chart, where the bed

trends west-east, and shows the lowest rapids: the First Congo

Expedition went up even higher. At Nkongo ka Lunga, the point

marked by two calabashes, we inquired for the Nokki Congo, of

which we had heard at Chisalla, and which still exists upon the

chart,--districts and villages being often confounded. All

laughed, and declared that the "port-town" had long been sold

off, the same had been the case, even in Tuckey's day, with the

next settlement, "Condo Sonio" (the Baobab of Sonho), formerly

the great up-stream mart, where the slave-traders transacted

their business. All the population was now transferred inland

and, like our predecessors, we were promised a two hours' climb

over the rough, steep highland which lay in front. Then we

understood that "Nokki" was the name of a canton, not of a

settlement. Its south-eastern limits may have contained the "City

of Norchie, the best situated of any place hitherto seen in

Ethiopia," where Father Merolla (p. 280) baptized 126 souls,--and

this is rendered probable by the crucifixes and coleworts which

were found by the First Congo Expedition.

Here, then, at 97.50 miles from the sea, ended our clan's cruize.

We could only disembark upon the clean sand, surrounded by cool

shade and blocks of gneiss, the favourite halting-place, as the

husks of ground-nuts show. Nchama Chamvu was at once sent off

with a present of gin and a verbal report of arrival to

Nessudikira Nchinu, (King), of Banza Nkaye, whilst we made ready

for a night's lodging à la belle étoile. The mesenger returned,

bringing a goat, and the good news that porters would be sent

early next morning. We slept well in the cool and dewless air,

with little trouble from mosquitoes. The voice of the cataract in

its "sublime same-soundingness" alone broke the silence, and the

scenery suggested to us, as to the first Britishers, that we

might be bivouacking among the "blue misty hills of Morven."

September 8.--Shortly after sunrise appeared Gidi Mavunga, father

to the "king," accompanied by five "princes," in the usual black

coats, and some forty slaves, armed with pistols, blunderbusses,

and guns of French and Yankee build. Our visitors wore the

official berretta, European shirts, that contrasted with coral

necklaces and rings of zinc, brass, and copper, and handsome

waistcoats, fronted by the well-tanned spoil of some "bush"

animal, generally a wild cat, hanging like a Scotch sporran--this

is and has long been the distinctive sign of a "gentleman."

According to John Barbot (Supplement, Churchill, v. 471), all men

in Loango were bound to wear a furskin over their clothes, viz.,

of an otter, a tame cat, or a cat-o'-mountain; a "great wood or

wild cat, or an angali (civet-cat). Besides which, they had very

fine speckled spelts, called ‘ enkeny,' which might be worn only

by the king and his peculiar favourites."

On the great man's mat was placed a large silver-handled dagger,

shaped somewhat like a fish-slicer; and the handsome hammocks of

bright-dyed cottons brought down for our use shamed our humble

ship's canvas. The visitors showed all that African câlinerie,

which, as fatal experience told me, would vanish for ever,

changing velvet paw to armed claws, at the first question of

cloth or rum. Meanwhile, we had only to visit their village "upon

the head of Gidi Mavunga."

About 9 A.M. we attacked a true Via Dolorosa, the normal road of

the Lower Congo. The steep ascent of dry, clayey soil was strewed

with schist and resplendent silvery gneiss; quartz appeared in

every variety, crystallized and amorphous, transparent white,

opaque, dusky, and rusty. Tuckey's mica slate appears to be

mostly schist or gneiss: I saw only one piece of true slate which

had been brought from the upper bed. Merolla's talc is mostly

mica.

Followed an equally rough descent to a water set in fetid mud,

its iridescence declaring the presence of iron; oozing out of the

ground, it discharges during rains into the river: and,

throughout the dry season, it keeps its little valley green with

trees and shrubs. I observed what appeared to be the Esere or

Calabar bean (Physostigma venenosum), whose hairy pod is very

distasteful to the travelling skin: it was a "Mucuna urens."

Another scramble upon a highly inclined hogsback, where weather-

worn brown-black granite, protruded bone-like from the clay

flesh, placed us at the outlying village of Kinbembu, with its

line of palms; here the aneroid showed 1,322 feet. After a short

rest, the hammock men resumed work over a rough plateau: the

rises were scattered with brush-wood, and the falls were choked

with the richest vegetation. Every hill discharged its own

rivulet bubbling over the rock, and the waters were mostly

chalybeate.

Presently appeared a kind of barracoon, a large square of thick

cane-work and thatch about eight feet high, the Fetish house of

the "Jinkimba" or circumcised boys, who received us with

unearthly yells. After a march of an hour and three

quarters,'covering five indirect and three direct miles in a

south-eastern rhumb, we reached Banza Nkaye, the royal village,

where the sympiesometer showed 1430 feet. Our bearers yelled

"Abububu!" showing that we had reached our destination, and the

villagers answered with a cry of "Abía-a-a!" The entrance was

triumphal: we left the river with a tail of fifty-six which had

swelled to 150 ragged followers.

After a short delay we proceeded to the "palace," which was

distinguished from afar by a long projecting gable, forming a

cool verandah. Descending some three hundred feet, we passed a

familiar sight in Africa, where "arboribus suus horror inest." A

tree-trunk bore three pegged skulls somewhat white with age;

eight years ago they were taken off certain wizards who had

bewitched their enemies. A labyrinthine entrance of transparent

cane-work served to prevent indecent haste, and presently we

found ourselves in presence of the Mfumo, who of course takes the

title of "Le Rei." Nessudikira was a "blanc-bec," aged twenty or

twenty-one, who till lately had been a trading lad at Boma--now

he must not look upon the sea. He appeared habited in the usual

guy style: a gaudy fancy helmet, a white shirt with limp Byronic

collar, a broad-cloth frock coat, a purple velvet gold-fringed

loin-wrap: a theatrical dagger whose handle and sheath bore cut-

glass emeralds and rubies, stuck in the waist-belt; brass anklets

depended over naked feet, and the usual beadle's cloak covered

the whole. Truly a change for the worse since Tuckey's day, when

a "savage magnificence" showed itself in the display of lions'

and leopards' skins; when no women were allowed to be present,

and when the boys could only clap hands: now the verandah is

surrounded by a squatting crowd and resounds with endless chatter

and scream.

Nessudikira, whose eyes by way of grandeur never wandered from

the floor, shook hands with us without rising from his chair,

somewhat after the fashion of certain women in civilized society,

who would be dignified, and who are not. His father, Gidi

Mavunga, knelt before him on the ground, a mat being forbidden in

the presence: he made the "batta-palmas" before he addressed his

"filho de pistola," as he called him, in opposition to filho de

fazenda. The "king" had lately been crowned in virtue of his

mother being a uterine sister of his predecessor. Here the goods

and dignity of the father revert after death to his eldest

maternal brother; to his eldest nephew, that is, the eldest son

of the eldest uterine sister, and, all others failing, to the

first born of the nearest maternal relative. This subjection of

sire to son is, however, mainly ceremonious: in private life the

king wears a cotton pagne, and his "governor" asserts his birth-

right even by wigging royalty.

We disposed ourselves upon seamen's chests covered with red

baize, fronting the semi-circle of frock-coated "gentlemen" and

half-naked dependants and slaves. Proceedings began with the

"mata-bicho" de rigueur, the inevitable preliminary and

conclusion of all life-business between birth and burial. The

Congo traveller will hear "Nganna! mata bicho" (Master! kill the

worm, i.e., give me a dram), till the words seem, like

"Bakhshish" further east, to poison his ears. This excuse for a

drink arose, or is said to have arisen, from some epidemic which

could be cured only by spirits, and the same is the tradition in

the New World ("Highlands of the Brazil," i. chap. 38). Similarly

the Fulas of the Windward coast, who as strict Moslem will not

drink fermented liquors, hold a cup of rum to be the sovereignest

thing in the world for taenia. The entozoon of course gives rise

to a variety of stale and melancholy jokes about the early bird,

the worm that dieth not, and so forth.

A greybeard of our gin was incontinently opened and a tumbler in

a basin was filled to overflowing; even when buying ground-nuts,

the measure must be heaped up. The glass was passed round to the

"great gentlemen," who drank it African fashion, expanding the

cheeks, rinsing the mouth so that no portion of the gums may lose

their share, and swallowing the draught with an affectedly wry

face. The basin then went to the "little gentlemen" below the

salt, they have the "vinum garrulum," and they scrambled as well

as screamed for a sup of the precious liquor. I need hardly quote

Caliban and his proposed genuflections.

I had been warned by all the traders of the lower river that

Banza Nokki would be to me the far-famed point of which it was

said,

"Quern passar o Cabo de Nam

Ou tornará, ou n o,"

and prepared accordingly. Old Shimbal, the linguist, had declared

that a year would be required by the suspicious "bush-men" to

palaver over the knotty question of a stranger coming only to

"make mukanda," that is to see and describe the country. M.

Pissot was forbidden by etiquette to recognize his old employé

(honours change manners here as in Europe), yet he set about the

work doughtily. My wishes were expounded, and every possible

promise of hammocks and porters, guides and interpreters, was

made by the hosts. The royal helmet was then removed, and a

handsome burnous was drawn over the king's shoulders, the hood

covering the berretta in most grotesque guise. After which the

commander and M. Pissot set out for the return march, leaving me

with my factotum Selim and the youth Nchama Chamvu. To the

question "Quid muliere levius?" the scandalous Latin writer

answers "Nihil," for which I would suggest "Niger." At the

supreme moment the interpreter, who had been deaf to the

charmer's voice (offering fifty dollars) for the last three days,

succumbed to the "truant fever." He knew something of Portuguese;

and, having been employed by the French factory, he had scoured

the land far and wide in search of "emigrants." He began well;

cooked a fowl, boiled some eggs, and made tea; after which he

cleared out a hut that was declared très logeable, and found a

native couch resembling the Egyptian kafas.

We slept in a new climate: at night the sky was misty, and the

mercury fell to 60° (F.). There was a dead silence; neither beast

nor bird nor sound of water was heard amongst the hills; only at

times high winds in gusts swept over the highlands with a

bullying noise, and disappeared, leaving everything still as the

grave. I felt once more "at home in the wilderness"--such,

indeed, it appeared after Boma, where the cockney-taint yet

lingered.

Chapter X.

Notes on the Nzadi or Congo River.

And first, touching the name of this noble and mysterious stream.

Diogo Cam, the discoverer in 1485, called it River of Congo,

Martin von Behaim Rio de Padrao, and De Barros "Rio Zaire." The

Portuguese discoveries utilized by Dapper thus corrupted to the

sonorous Zaïre, the barbarous Nzadi applied by the natives to the

lower bed. The next process was that of finding a meaning.

Philippo Pigafetta of Vicenza,[FN#10] translated Zaïre by "so,

cioè Sapio in Latino;" hence Sandoval[FN#11] made it signify "Rio

de intendimiento," of understanding. Merolla duly records the

contrary. "The King of Portugal, Dom John II., having sent a

fleet under D. Diego Cam to make discoveries in this Southern

Coast of Africa, that admiral guessed at the nearness of the land

by nothing so much as by the complexion of the waters of the

Zaire; and, putting into it, he asked of the negroes what river

and country that was, who not understanding him answered

‘Zevoco,' which in the Congolan tongue is as much as to say ‘I

cannot tell;' from whence the word being corrupted, it has since

been called Zairo."

D'Anville (1749), with whom critical African geography began,

records "Barbela," a southern influent, perhaps mythical, named

by his predecessors, and still retained in our maps: it is the

Verbele of Pigafetta and the Barbele of Linschoten, who make it

issue either from the western lake-reservoir of the Nile, or from

the "Aquilunda" water, a name variously derived from O-Calunga,

the sea (?), or from A-Kilunda, of Kilunda (?) The industrious

compiler, James Barbot (1700), mentions the "Umbre," the modern

Wambre, rising in the northern mountains or, according to P.

Labat, in a lake: Dapper (1676), who so greatly improved the

outline of Africa, had already derived with De Barros the "Rio

Zaïre" from a central reservoir "Zaïre," whose island, the

Zembre, afterwards became the Vambere, Wambre, and Zambere, now

identified through the Zambeze with the Maravi, Nyassa or Kilwa

water. The second or northernmost branch is the Bancora of modern

maps, the Brankare of Pigafetta, and the Bancari of Cavazzi; it

flows from the same mountain as the Umbre, and Duarte Lopez

(1560) causes it to mingle with the Zaire on the eastern borders

of Pango, at the foot of the Sierra del Crystal. In certain

modern maps the Bankare fork is called "Lekure,"and is made to

receive the "Bambaye." The Barbela again anastomoses with the

Luba (?) or northern section of the Coango, including its

influent, the Lubilash; the Kasai (Kasabi) also unites with the

Coango, and other dotted lines show the drainage of the Lualaba

into the Kasai.

The Portuguese, according to Vasconcello, shunning all fanciful

derivations, were long satisfied to term the Congo "Rio de

Patron" (Rio do Padrao) from the first of memorial columns built

at its mouth. In 1816 Captain Tuckey's expedition learned with

Maxwell that the stream should be called, not Zaire, but Moienzi

Enzaddi, the "great river" or the "river which absorbs all other

rivers." This thoroughly corrupted name, which at once found its

way into popular books, and which is repeated to the present day

even by scientific geographers, suggested to some theorists

"Zadi," the name of the Niger at Wassenah according to Sidi

Harriet, as related by the American, James Riley, of the brig

"Commerce," wrecked on August 28, 1815: others remembered "Zad"

which Shaykh Yusuf (Hornemann), misleading Mungo Park, learned to

be the Niger east of Tinbuktu, "where it turns off to the

southward." I need hardly say that this "Zadi" and "Zad" are

evident corruptions of Bahr Shady, Shary, Shari, Chad, Tsad, and

Chadda, the swampy lake, alternately sweet and brackish, which

was formerly thrown by mistake into the Chadda River, now called

the Binue or Bimúwe, the great eastern fork of the Negro-land

Nile: the true drainage of the Chadda in ancient times has lately

been determined by the adventurous Dr. Nachtigal. Mr.

Cooley[FN#12] applied, as was his wont, a superficial knowledge

of Kibundo to Fiote or Congoese, and further corrupted Moienzi

Enzaddi to Muenya (for Menha or Menya) Zinzádi-this Angolan

"emendation," however, was not adopted.

The natives dwelling upon the Congo banks have, as usual in

Africa, no comprehensive generic term for the mighty artery of

the West Coast. Each tribe calls it by its own name. Thus even in

Fiote we find "Mulángo," or "Lángo," the water; "Nkoko," the

stream, "Mwánza," the river, and "Mwanza Nnenne," the great

river, all used synonymously at the several places. The only

proper name is Mwánza Nzádi, the River Nzadi: hence Zaire, Zaïre,

Zahir, Zaira the "flumen Congo olim Zaida" (C. Barlé)--all

corruptions more or less common.

The homogeneous form of the African continent causes a whimsical

family resemblance, allowing for the difference of northern and

southern hemispheres, in its four arterial streams--the Nile and

Niger, the Congo and Zambeze. I neglect the Limpopo, called in

its lower bed Espirito Santo, Maniça, Manhiça (Manyisa), and

Delagoa River; the Cunene (Nourse) River, the Orange River, and

others, which would be first-rate streams in Europe, but are mere

dwarfs in the presence of the four African giants. The Nile and

Niger, being mainly tenanted by Moslemized and comparatively

civilized races, have long been known, more or less, to Europe.

The Zambeze, owing to the heroic labours of Dr. Livingstone, is

fast becoming familiar to the civilized world; and the Congo is

in these days (1873) beginning at last to receive the attention

which it deserves. It is one of the noblest known to the world.

Whilst the Mississippi drains a basin of 1,244,000 English square

miles, and at Carrollton, in Louisiana, discharges as its mean

volume for the year 675,000 cubic feet of water per second, the

Congo, with a valley area of 800,000 square miles, rolls at least

2,500,000 feet. Moreover, should it prove a fact that the Nzadi

receives the Chambeze and its lakes, the Bangweolo (or Bemba),

the Moero, near which stands the capital of the Cazembe, the

Kamalondo, Lui or Ulenge, "Lake Lincoln" (Chibungo), and other

unvisited waters, its area of drainage will nearly equal that of

the Nile.

The four arteries all arise in inner regions of the secondary

age, subtended east and west by ghats, or containing mountains

mostly of palaeozoic or primary formation, the upheaval of

earthquakes and volcanoes. These rims must present four distinct

water-sheds. The sea-ward slopes discharge their superabundance

direct to the ocean often in broad estuaries like the Gambia and

the Gaboon, still only surface drains; whilst the counterslopes

pour inland, forming a network of flooded plains, perennial

swamps, streams, and lakes. The latter, when evaporation will not

balance the supply to a "sink," "escape from the basin of the

central plateau-lands, and enter the ocean through deep lateral

gorges, formed at some ancient period of elevation and

disturbance, when the containing chains were subject to

transverse fractures." All four head in the region of tropical

rains, the home of the negro proper, extending 35° along the

major axis of the continent, between Lake Chad (north latitude

14° to 15°), and the Noka a Batletle or Hottentot Lake, known to

the moderns as Ngami (south latitude 20° to 21°). Consequently

all are provided with lacustrine reservoirs of greater or smaller

extent, and are subject to periodical inundations, varying in

season, according as the sun is north or south of the line. Those

of the northern hemisphere swell with the "summer rains of

Ethiopia," a fact known in the case of the Nile to Democritus of

Abdera (5th cent. B.C.), to Agatharchidas of Cnidos (2nd cent.

B.C.) to Pomponius Nida, to Strabo (xvii. 1), who traces it

through Aristotle up to Homer's "heaven-descended stream" and to

Pliny (v. 10). For the same reason the reverse is the case with

the two southern arteries; their high water, with certain

limitations in the case of the Congo, is in our winter.

By the condition of their courses, all the four magnates are

broken into cataracts and rapids at the gates where they burst

through the lateral chains; the Mosi-wa-túnya (smoke that

thunders) of the Zambeze, and the Ripon Falls discovered by

Captains Speke and Grant upon the higher Nile, are the latest

acquisitions to geography, whilst the "Mai waterfall," reported

to break the Upper Congo, still awaits exploration. This accident

of form suggests a division of navigation on the maritime section

and on the plateau-bed which, in due time, will be connected,

like the St. Lawrence, by canals and railways. All but the Nzadi,

and perhaps even this, have deltas, where the divided stream,

deficient in water-shed, finds its sluggish way to the sea.

The largest delta at present known is the Nigerian, whose base

measures 155 direct geographical miles between the Rivers Kontoro

east, and Benin west. Pliny (v. 9) makes the Nile delta extend

170 Roman miles, from the Canopic or African to the Pelusiac or

Asiatic mouth, respectively distant from the apex 146 and 166

miles; the modern feature has been reduced to 80 miles from east

to west, and a maximum of 90 from north to south. The Zambeze

extends 58 miles between the Kilimani or northern and the west

Luabo, Cuama or southern outlet-at least, if these mouths are not

to be detached. The Nzadi is the smallest, measuring a maximum of

only 12 to 15 miles from the Malela or Bananal Creek to the

mangrove ditches of the southern shore.

In these depressed regions the comparatively salubrious climates

of the uplands become dangerous to the European; the people also

are degraded, mostly pirates and water-thieves, as the Nigerian

Ibos, the Congoese Musulungus, and the Landim (Amalandi) Kafirs

about the lower Zambeze. There is a notable similarity in their

productions, partly known to Pliny (v. 8), who notices "the

calamus, the papyrus, and the animals" of the Nigris and the

Nile. The black-maned lion and the leopard rule the wold; the

gorilla, the chimpanzee, and other troglodytes affect the thinner

forests; the giraffe, the zebra, and vast hosts of antelopes

scour the plains; the turtle swims the seas; and the

hippopotamus, the crocodile, and various siluridae, some of

gigantic size, haunt the lakes and rivers. The nymphæa, lotus or

water-lily, forms rafts of verdure; and the stream-banks bear the

calabash, the palmyra, the oil-palm, and the papyrus. Until late

years it was supposed that the water-lily, sacred to Isis, had

been introduced into Egypt from India, where it is also a

venerated vegetable, and that it had died out with the form of

Fetishism which fostered it. It has simply disappeared like the

crocodile from the Lower Nile. Finally, to conclude this rapidly

outlined sketch, all at the present moment happily share the same

fate; they are being robbed of their last mysteries; the veil of

Isis is fast yielding to the white man's grasp.

We can hardly as yet answer the question whether the Congo was

known to the ancients. Our acquaintance with the oldest

explorations is at present fragmentary, and we are apt to assume

that the little told us in our school-books is the sum-total of

former exploits. But possibly inscriptions in the New World, as

well as in the Old, may confirm the "first circumnavigation" so

simply recounted by Herodotus, especially that of the

Phoenicians, who set out from the Red Sea, and in three years

returned to the Mediterranean. The expression, "they had the sun

to the right," is variously explained. In the southern hemisphere

the sailors facing west during our winter would see the sun at

noon on the right, and in the northern hemisphere on the left.

But why should they face west? In the "Chronicle" of Schedel (p.

ccxc., printed in 1793, Pigafetta, Pinkerton, xi. 412) we read:

"These two, (i.e. Jacob Cam and Martin Behem, or Behaim) by the

help of the gods, ploughing the sea at short distance from shore,

having passed the equinoctial line, entered the nether

hemisphere, where, fronting the east, their shadow fell towards

the south, and on their right hand." Perhaps it may simply allude

to the morning sun, which would rise to port as they went

southwards, and to starboard as they returned north. Again, the

"First Overland Expedition" is related by the Father of History

with all the semblance of truth. We see no cause to doubt that

the Nasammones or Nasamones (Nás Amún), the five young Lybians of

the Great Syrtis (Fezzan) crossed the <Greek> (watered

strip along the Mediterranean), passed through the

<Greek> (the "bush") on the frontier, still famed for

lions, and the immeasurably sandy wastes (the Sahara proper,

across which caravan lines run). The "band of little black men"

can no longer be held fabulous, since Miani and Schweinfurth

added the Akya to M. du Chaillu's Obongo. The extensive marshes

were the northern limit of the tropical rains, and the "City of

Enchanters" is the type of many still existing in inner Africa.

The great river flowing from west to east, whose crocodiles

showed it to be the Nile, must have been the Niger. The ancients

knew middle Ethiopia to be a country watered by lakes and

streams: Strabo (xvii. 3) tells us that "some suppose that even

the Nile-sources are near the extremities of Mauritania." Hence,

too, the Nilides, or Lake of Standing Water in Pliny (v. 10). For

the most part they made a great central river traverse the

northern continent from west to east, whereas the Arabian

geographers of the middle ages, who were followed by the

Portuguese, inverted the course. Both may be explained by the lay

of the Quorra and the Binúwe, especially the latter; it was

chronically confounded with the true Nile, whose want of western

influents was not so well known then as now.

The generation which has discovered the "Moabite Stone," the

ruins of Troy (Schliemann), and the key to the inscriptions of

Etruria (Corssen), need not despair of further progress. It has

been well remarked that, whereas the course of modern exploration

has generally been maritime, the ancients, whose means of

navigation were less perfect, preferred travelling by land. We

are, doubtless, far better acquainted with the outlines of the

African coast, and the immediately maritime region, than the

Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Arabs. But it is still

doubtful whether their information respecting the interior did

not surpass ours. Eratosthenes, librarian of Alexandria (B. C.

276-196) expresses correct notions concerning the upper course of

the Nile; Marinus of Tyre[FN#13] had the advantage of borrowing

from the pilot, Diogenes, who visited the Nile reservoirs of

central inter-tropical Africa, and Ptolemy has been justified in

certain important points by our latest explorations.

No trace of the Nzadi or Congo is to be found in the Pelusian

geographer, whose furthest point is further north. In the "Tabula

Rotunda Rogeriana" of A. D. 1154 (Lelewel, No. X.) two lakes are

placed upon the equator, and the north-western discharges to the

Atlantic the river Kauga or Kanga, which the learned Mr. Hogg

suspected to be the Congo. Marino Sanudo (1321), who has an idea

of Guinea (Ganuya) and of Zanzibar (Zinziber), here bends Africa

to the south-east, and inscribes, "Regio inhabitabilis propter

calorem." Fra Mauro (1457) reduces "Ethiopia Occidentalis et

Australis" to the minimum, and sheds the stream into the F. Xebe

(Webbe or Galla-Somal River). Martin von Behaim of Nürnberg

(1492) in whose day Africa began to assume her present form,

makes the Rio de Padron drain the western face of the Montes

Lunae. Diogo Ribera, chief pilot of the Indies under Charles V.

(Seville, 1529) further corrects the shape of the continent, and

places the R. do Padrão north, and the Rio dos Boms Sinhaes

(Zambeze) south of the Montes Lunae. Mercator and Henry Hondt

(1623) make the Zaire Lacus the northern part of the Zembre

Lacus. John Senex (circ. 1712) shows the "R. Coango," the later

Quango, believed to be the great south-western fork of the Congo.

It is not a little peculiar that the last of the classics,

Claudius Claudianus, an Alexandrian Christian withal, describes

the Gir, or Girrhaeus, with peculiarly Congoese features. In "De

laud. Stilicho." (lib. i. 252) we have--

"Gir, notissimus amnis

Æthiopum, simili mentitus gurgite Nilum."

And again ("Eidyll. in Nilum," 20):

"Hunc bibit infrenis Garamas, domitorque ferarum

Girrhæus, qui vasta colit sub rupibus antra,

Qui ramos ebeni, qui denies vellit eburnos."

Here we find a Wady or torrent discharging into the

Mediterranean, made equal to "Egypt's heaven-descended stream;"

caused to flow under great rocks, as the Niger was long believed

to pass underground to the Nile, of which it was a western

branch; and said to supply ebony, which is the characteristic not

even of the Niger regions, but of the Zaire.[FN#14] A little of

this peculiar and precious commodity is produced by Old Calabar,

east of the Nigerian delta, and southwards it becomes common.

Pliny (v. i) places his Gir (which some editions read "Niger")

"some distance" beyond the snowy Atlas. Ptolemy (iv. 6) tells us

"in Mediterraneâ verò fluunt amnes maximi, nempe Gir conjungens

Usargalam montem et vallem Garamanticam, à quo divertens amnis

continet secundum situm (east longitude) 42° (north latitude)--

16°." Again: "Et Nigir fluvius jungens et ipse Mandrum" (Mandara,

south of Lake Chad?) "et Thala montes" (the range near the

western coast on the parallel of Cabo Blanco?). "Facit autem et

hic Nigritem Paludem" (Lake Dibbie or Debu, north-east of Sego

and Sansanding?) cujus situs 15°-18°."

Here the Gir, Ger, Gar, or Geir is clearly laid down as a

Mediterranean stream, whilst "Niger" gave rise to the confusion

of the Senegal with the true Niger. The name has greatly

exercised commentators' ingenuity. D'Anville believes the Niger

and the Gir to end in the same quarter of Africa, and the latter

to be entirely unknown. Gosselin, agreeing with Pliny, whose Ger

is the Nigir of the Greeks, places them south of the Atlas. Mr.

Leake (loc. cit.) holds all conjecture useless. Not so the Rev.

M. Tristram, whose geography is of the ornithological or bird's-

eye order. In "The Great Sahara" (pp. 362-4, Appendix I.), he

asks, "May not the name Giris or Gir be connected with Djidi?" i.

e. the Wadi Mzi, a mean sink in El Areg, south of Algeria.

Gräberg ("Morocco") had already identified it with the Ghir,

which flows through Sagelmessa; Burckhardt with the Jir, "a large

stream coming from about north latitude 10°, and flowing north-

west through the Wadaí, west of the borders of Dar-Fur." No

wonder that some geographers are disposed to believe Gir, Giris,

Ger, and Geir to be "a general native name for a river, like Bá"

(Bahr), "Bi" (in many Central African tongues a river,

Schweinfurth, ii. 241), "Quorra (Kwara), Gulbi and Gambaru (the

Yeou), Shadda, and Enzaddi."

It is still interesting to consider the circumstances which gave

rise to Captain Tuckey's disastrous expedition. As any map of

Africa during the early quarter of the present century, Bowdich

or Dupuis for instance, may prove, the course of the Niger was

laid down, now according to the ancients, then after Arab

information. The Dark Continent, of which D'Anville justly said

that writers abused, "pour ainsi dire, de la vaste carrière que

l'intérieur y laissait prendre" ("Mém. de l'Acad. des

Inscriptions," xxvi. 61), had not been subjected to scientific

analysis; this was reserved for the Presidential Address to the

Royal Geographical Society by the late Sir R. I. Murchison, 1852.

Geographers did not see how to pass the Niger through the" Kong

Mountains, which, uniting with the Jebel Komri, are supposed to

run in one unbroken chain across the continent;" and these Lunar

Mountains of the Moslems, which were "stretched like a chaplet of

beads from east to west," undoubtedly express, as M. du Chaillu

contends, a real feature, the double versant, probably a mere

wave of ground between the great hydrographic basins of the Niger

and the Congo, of North Africa and of Central Africa. Men still

wasted their vigour upon the Nigritis Palus, the Chelonídes

waters, the Mount Caphas, and the lakes of Wangara, variously

written Vancara and Vongara, not to mention other ways. Maps

place "Wangara"to the north-west of Dahome, where the natives

utterly ignore the name. Dupuis ("Ashantee," 1824) suggests that,

like "Takrúr," it is an obsolete Moslem term for the 660 miles of

maritime region between Cape Lahu and the Rio Formoso or the Old

Calabar River. This would include the three despotisms, Ashanti,

Dahome, and Benin, with the tribes who, from a distance of

twenty-five days, bring gold to Tinbuktu (the Tungubutu of De

Barros, i. 220). Thus the lakes of Wangara would be the lagoons

of the Slave-coast, in which the Niger may truly be said to lose

itself.

At length M. Reichard, of Lobenstein ("Ephémerides

Géographiques," Weimar, 1802), theoretically discovered the mouth

of the Niger, by throwing it into the Bight of Benin. He was

right in essentials and wrong in details; for instance, he

supposed the Rio Formoso or Benin River and the Rio del Rey to

join in one great stream beyond the flat alluvial delta: whereas

the former is indirectly connected through the Wari with the

Niger, and the latter has no connection with it at all. The truth

was received with scant courtesy, and the hypothesis was

pronounced to be "worthy of very little attention." There were,

however, honourable exceptions. In 1813, the learned Malte-Brun

("Précis de la Géographie Universelle," vol. iv. 635) sanctioned

the theory hinted at by Mungo Park, and in 1828 the well-abused

Caillié, a Frenchman who had dared to excel Bruce and Mungo Park,

wrote these remarkable words: "If I may be permitted to hazard an

opinion as to the course of the River Dhioliba, I should say that

it empties itself by several mouths into the Bight of Benin." In

1829, fortified by Clapperton's opinion, my late friend, James

Macqueen, who to immense industry added many qualifications of a

comparative geographer, recommended a careful examination of the

estuaries between the Rio Formoso and Old Calabar. The question

was not finally set at rest till 1830 (November 15th), when

Richard and John Lander entered Yoruba viâ Badagry and,

triumphantly descending the lower Niger, made the sea by the

"Nun" and Brass embouchures.

Meanwhile, Mr. George Maxwell, a Scotchman who had long traded in

the Congo, and who subsequently published a chart of the lower

river proposed, at the end of the last century, to take from

England six supernumerary boats for rowing and sailing, which

could be carried by thirty people and portaged round the

cataracts. This gave rise to Captain Tuckey's first error,

depending upon labour and provisions, which were not to be had

"for love or money" anywhere on the Congo above the Yellala. With

thirty or forty black rowers, probably Cabinda men, Maxwell

advised navigating the river about May, when the Cacimbo or dry

season begins; and with arms, provisions, and merchandize he

expected to reach the sources in six weeks. The scheme, which was

rendered abortive by the continental war of 1793, had two

remarkable results. It caused Mungo Park's fatal second journey,

and it led to the twin expeditions of Tuckey and Peddie.

In July, 1804, the ardent and irrepressible Scot wrote from

Prior's Lynn, near Longtown, to a friend, Mr. William Kier, of

Milholm, that the river "Enzaddi" was frequented by Portuguese,

who found the stream still as large as near the mouth, after

ascending 600 miles. It is useful to observe how these distances

are obtained. The slave-touters for the Liverpool and other

dealers used, we are told, to march one month up country, and

take two to return. Thirty days multiplied by twenty miles per

diem give 600 miles. I need hardly point out that upon such a

mission the buyer would be much more likely to travel 60 miles

than 600 in a single month, and I believe that the natives of the

lower river never went beyond Nsundi, or 215 indirect miles from

Point Padrão.

With truly national tenacity and plausibility Perfervidum

Ingenium contended that the Congo or Zaire was the Nigerian

debouchure. Major Rennell, who had disproved the connection of

the Niger and the Egyptian Nile by Bruce's barometric

measurements on the course of the mountain-girt Bahr el Azrak,

and by Brown's altitudes at Darfur, condemned the bold theory for

the best of reasons.

Mungo Park, after a brief coldness and coquetting with it, hotly

adopted to the fullest extent the wild scheme. Before leaving

England (Oct. 4, 1804), he addressed a memoir to Lord Camden,

explaining the causes of his conversion. It is curious to note

his confusion of "Zad," his belief that the "Congo waters are at

all seasons thick and muddy," and his conviction that "the annual

flood," which he considered perpetual, "commences before the

rains fall south of the equator." The latter is to a certain

extent true; the real reason will presently be given. Infected by

the enthusiasm of his brother Scot, he adds, "Considered in a

commercial point of view, it is second only to the discovery of

the Cape of Good Hope; and, in a geographical point of view, it

is certainly the greatest discovery that remains to be made in

this world."

Thereupon the traveller set out for the upper Niger with the

conviction that he would emerge by the Congo, and return to

England viâ the West Indies. From the fragments of his Journal,

and his letters to Lord Camden, to Sir Joseph Banks, and to his

wife, it is evident that at San-sanding he had modified his

theories, and that he was gradually learning the truth. To the

former he writes, "I am more and more inclined to think that it

(the Niger) can end nowhere but in the sea;" and presently a

guide, who had won his confidence, assured him that the river,

after passing Kashna, runs directly to the right hand, or south,

which would throw it into the Gulf of Guinea.

The fatal termination of Park's career in 1805 lulled public

curiosity for a time, but it presently revived. The geographical

mind was still excited by the mysterious stream which evaporation

or dispersion drained into the Lake-swamps of Wangara, and to

this was added not a little curiosity concerning the lamented and

popular explorer's fate. We find instructions concerning Mungo

Park issued even to cruizers collecting political and other

information upon the East African coast; e.g., to Captain Smee,

sent in 1811 by the Bombay Government. His companion, Lieutenant

Hardy, converted Usagára, west of the Zanzibar seaboard, into

"Wangarah," and remarks, "a white man, supposed to be Park, is

said to have travelled here twenty years ago" ("Observations,"

&c.).

About ten years after Mungo Park's death, two expeditions were

fitted out by Government to follow up his discovery. Major Peddie

proceeded to descend the Niger, and Captain Tuckey to ascend the

Congo. We have nothing to say of the former journey except that,

as in the latter, every chief European officer died--Major

Peddie, Captain Campbell, Lieutenant Stokoe, and M. Kummer, the

naturalist. The expedition, consisting of 100 men and 200

animals, reached Kakundy June 13, 1817, and there fell to pieces.

Concerning the Zaire Expedition, which left Deptford on February

16, 1816, a few words are advisable.

The personnel was left to the choice of the leader, Commander J.

K. Tuckey, R. N. (died). There were six commissioned officers--

Lieutenant John Hawkey, R.N. (died); Mr. Lewis Fitz-maurice,

master and surveyor; Mr. Robert Hodder and Mr. Robert Beecraft,

master's mates; Mr. John Eyre, purser (died); and Mr. James

McKerrow, assistant surgeon. Under these were eight petty

officers, four carpenters, two blacksmiths, and fourteen able

seamen. The marines numbered one sergeant, one corporal, and

twelve privates. Grand total of combatants, forty-nine. To these

were added five "savants": Professor Chetien Smith, a Norwegian

botanist and geologist (died); Mr. Cranch, collector of objects

of natural history (died); Mr. Tudor, comparative anatomist

(died); Mr. Galway, Irishman and volunteer naturalist (died); and

"Lockhart, a gardener" (of His Majesty's Gardens, Kew). There

were two Congo negroes, Benjamin Benjamins and Somme Simmons; the

latter, engaged as a cook's mate, proved to be a "prince of the

blood," which did not prevent his deserting for fear of the

bushmen.

The allusions made to Mr. Cranch, a "joined methodist," and a

"self-made man," are not complimentary. "Cranch, I fear," says

Professor Smith, "by his absurd conduct, will diminish the

liberality of the captain towards us: he is like a pointed arrow

to the company." And, again, "Poor Cranch is almost too much the

object of jest; Galway is the principal banterer."In the

Professor's remarks on the" fat purser,"we can detect the

foreigner, who, on such occasions, should never be mixed up with

Englishmen.

Sir Joseph Banks had suggested a steamer drawing four feet, with

twenty-four horse-power; an admirable idea, but practical

difficulties of construction rendered the "Congo" useless. Of the

fifty-four white men, eighteen, including eleven of the "Congo"

crew, died in less than three months. Fourteen out of a party of

thirty officers and men, who set out to explore the cataracts viâ

the northern bank, lost their lives; and they were followed by

four more on board the "Congo," and one at Bahia. The expedition

remained in the river between July 6th and October 18th, little

more than three months; yet twenty-one, or nearly one-third,

three of the superior officers and all the scientific men,

perished. Captain Tuckey died of fatigue and exhaustion (Oct.

4th) rather than of disease; Lieutenant Hawkey, of fatal typhus

(which during 1862 followed the yellow fever, in the Bonny and

New Calabar Rivers); and Mr. Eyre, palpably of bilious remittent.

Professor Smith had been so charmed with the river, that he was

with difficulty persuaded to return. Prostrated four days

afterwards by sickness on board the transport, he refused physic

and food, because his stomach rejected bark, and, preferring cold

water, he became delirious; apparently, he died of

disappointment, popularly called a "broken heart." Messrs. Tudor

and Cranchalso fell victims to bilious remittents, complicated,

in the case of the latter, by the "gloomy view taken of

Christianity by that sect denominated Methodists." Mr. Galway, on

September 28th, visited Sangala, the highest rapid ("Narrative,"

p. 328). In the Introduction, p. 80, we are wrongly told that he

went to Banza Ninga, whence, being taken ill on August 24th, he

was sent down stream. He, like his commander, had to sleep in the

open, almost without food, and he also succumbed to fever,

fatigue, and exhaustion.

The cause of this prodigious mortality appears in the records of

the expedition. Officers and men were all raw, unseasoned, and

unacclimatized. Captain Tuckey, an able navigator, the author of

"Maritime Geography and Statistics," had served in the tropics;

his biographer, however, writes that a long imprisonment in

France and "residence in India had broken down his constitution,

and at the age of thirty (ob. æt. thirty-nine) his hair was grey

and his head nearly bald." The men perished, exactly like the

missionaries of old, by hard work, insufficient and innutritious

food, physical exhaustion, and by the doctor. At first "immediate

bleeding and gentle cathartics" are found to be panaceas for mild

fevers (p. 46): presently the surgeon makes a discovery as

follows: "With regard to the treatment I shall here only observe

that bleeding was particularly unsuccessful. Cathartics were of

the greatest utility, and calomel, so administered as speedily to

induce copious salivation, generally procured a remission of all

the violent symptoms." The phlebotomy was inherited from the

missioners, who own almost to have blinded themselves by it. When

one was "blooded" fifteen times and died, his amateur Sangrado

said, "It had been better to have bled him thirty times:" the

theory was that in so hot a climate all the European blood should

be replaced by African. One of the entries in Captain Tuckey's

diary is, "Awaking extremely unwell, I directly swallowed five

grains of calomel"--a man worn out by work and sleeping in the

open air! The "Congo" sloop was moored in a reach surrounded by

hills, instead of being anchored in mid stream where the current

of water creates a current of air; those left behind in her died

of palm wine, of visits from native women, and of exposure to the

sun by day and to the nightly dews. On the line of march the

unfortunate marines wore pigtails and cocked hats; stocks and

cross-belts; tight-fitting, short-waisted red coats, and knee-

breeches with boots or spatter-dashes--even the stout Lord Clyde

in his latest days used to recall the miseries of his march to

Margate, and declare that the horrid dress gave him more pain

than anything he afterwards endured in a life-time of marching.

None seemed capable of calculating what amount of fatigue and

privation the European system is able to support in the tropics.

And thus they perished, sometimes of violent bilious remittents,

more often of utter weariness and starvation. Peace to their

manes!--they did their best, and "angels can no more." They

played for high stakes, existence against fame--

"But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,

Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears,

And slits the thin-spun life."

"The Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River Zaire"

(London, John Murray, 1818), published by permission of the Lords

Commissioners of the Admiralty, was necessarily a posthumous

work. The Introduction of eighty-two pages and the General

Observations (fifty-three pages) are by anonymous hands; follow

Captain Tuckey's Narrative, Professor Smith's Journal, and an

Appendix with seven items; 1, vocabularies of the Malemba and

Embomma (Fiote or Congo) languages; 2, 3, and 4, Zoology; 5,

Botany; 6, Geology; and 7, Hydrography. The most valuable is No.

5, an admirable paper entitled "Observations, Systematical and

Geographical, on Professor Christian Smith's Collection of Plants

from the Vicinity of the River Congo, by Robert Brown, F.R.S."

The "Geology," by Mr. Charles Konig, of the British Museum, is

based upon very scanty materials. The folio must not be severely

criticized; had the writers lived, they might have worked up

their unfinished logs into interesting and instructive matter.

But evidently they had not prepared themselves for the work; no

one knew the periods of rain at the equator; there was no

linguist to avoid mistakes in the vocabulary; moreover, Professor

Smith's notes, being kept in small and ill-formed Danish

characters, caused such misprints as "poppies" for papaws. Some

few of the mistakes should be noticed for the benefit of

students. The expedition appears to have confused São Salvador,

the capital, with St. Antonio placed seven days from the river

mouth (p. 277). It calls Santo Antão (Cape Verds) "San Antonio;"

the Ilha das Rôlas (of turtle doves) Rolle's Island; "morfil"

bristles of the elephant's tail, and manafili ivory, both being

from the Portuguese marfim; moudela for mondele or mondelle, a

white man; malava, "presents," for mulavu (s. s. as msámbá, not

maluvi, Douville), palm wine, which in the form mulavu m'putu

(Portuguese) applies to wine and spirits. We have also "Leimba"

for Lyámba or Dyámba (Cannabis saliva); "Macasso, a nut chewed by

great people only," for Makazo, the bean of the Kola (Sterculia);

"Hyphæa" and "Dom" for Palmyra Flabelliformis, whose "fruit hangs

down in bunched clusters;" "Raphia" for Raphia Vinifera, commonly

called the bamboo or wine palm, and "casa," a purgative legumen,

for nkasa, "sass," or poison wood, identified with the red-water

tree of Sierra Leone, the erythropheum of Professor Afzelius, of

the order Cæalpineae, which gave a name to the Brazil.

The next important visit to the Congo River was paid by Captain

Owen's Expedition, when homeward bound in 1826. The "Leven" and

"Barracouta" surveyed the stream twenty-five miles from its mouth

during a week, beginning with January 1, just after the highest

flood. At thirteen miles out at sea the water was fresh and of a

dingy red; it fermented and remained in a highly putrescent state

for some days, tarnishing silver; kept for four months, it became

perfectly clear and colourless, without depositing any sediment.

This reminds us of the changing colours, green, red and milky

white, to which the Nile and all great African rivers that flood

periodically are subject.[FN#15]

The next traveller that deserves notice is the unfortunate

Douville,[FN#16] through whose tissue of imposture runs a golden

thread of truth. As his first journey, occupying nearly two of

the three volumes, was probably confined to the Valley of the

Cuanza River, so his second, extending beyond the equator, and to

a meridian 25° east of Paris, becomes fable as he leaves the

course of the Loge Stream. Yet, although he begins by doubting

that the Coango and the Zaire are the same waters, he ends by

recognizing the fact, and his map justly lays down the Fleuve

Couango dit Zaire à son embouchure. Whether the tale of the

mulatto surveyor be fact or not is of little matter: the

adventurer had an evident inkling of the truth.

A flood of side light is thrown upon the head waters of the Congo

River by Dr. Livingstone's first memorable journey (1852-56),

across Africa, and by the more dubious notices of his third

expedition The Introduction (p. xviii.) to Captain Tuckey's

narrative had concluded from the fact of the highest flood being

in March, and the lowest level about the end of August, that at

least one branch of the river must pass through some portion of

the northern hemisphere. The general observations affixed to

"Narrative" (p. 346), contain these words: "If the rise of the

Zaire had proceeded from rains to the southward of the Line,

swelling the tributary streams and pouring in mountain torrents

the waters into the main channel, the rise would have been sudden

and impetuous." Of course the writer had recourse to the "Lakes

of Wangara," in north latitude 12° to 15°: that solution of the

difficulty belonged inevitably to his day. Captain Tuckey (p.

178) learned, at Mavunda, that ten days of canoeing would take

him beyond all the rapids to a large sandy islet which makes two

channels, one to the north-west, the other to the north-east. In

the latter there is a fall above which canoes are procurable:

twenty days higher up the river issues, by many small streams,

from a great marsh or lake of mud.[FN#17] Again, a private letter

written from the "Yellala" (p. 343) declares that "the Zaire

would be found to issue from a lake or a chain of lakes

considerably to the north of the Line; and, so far from the low

state of the river in July and August militating against the

hypothesis, it gives additional weight, provided the river swell

in early September"--which it did. In his "Journal" (p. 224), we

find a memorandum, written as it were with a dying hand,

"Hypothesis confirmed. The water..."

On February 24, 1854, Dr. Livingstone, after leaving what he

calls the "Dilolo Lake," found on an almost level plain, some

4,000 to 5,000 feet high and then flooded after rains, a great

water parting between the eastern and the western continental

shores. I have carefully considered the strictures upon this

subject by the author of "Dr. Livingstone's Errors" (p. 101), and

have come to the conclusion that the explorer was too experienced

to make the mistakes attributed to him by the cabinet geographer.

The translation "despair" for "bitterness" (of the fish?) and the

reference to Noah's Deluge may be little touches ad captandum;

but the Kibundo or Angolan tongue certainly has a dental though

it lacks a cerebral d.

The easterly flow was here represented by the Leeba or upper

course of the "Leeambye," the "Diambege of Ladislaus Magyar, that

great northern and north-western course of the Zambeze across

which older geographers had thrown a dam of lofty mountains,

where the Mosi-wa-tunya cataract was afterwards discovered. The

opposite versant flowing to the north was the Kasai or Kasye

(Livingstone), the Casais of the Pombeiros, the Casati of

Douville, the Casasi and Casézi of M. Cooley (who derives it from

Casezi, a priest, the corrupted Arabic Kissis ); the Kassabi

(Casabi) of Beke, the Cassaby of Monteiro and Gamitto (p. 494),

and the Kassaby or Cassay of Valdez. Its head water is afterwards

called by the explorer Lomame and Loke, possibly for Lu-oke,

because it drains the highlands of Mossamba and the district of

Ji-oke, also called Ki-oke, Kiboke, and by the Portuguese

"Quiboque." The stream is described as being one hundred yards

broad, running through a deep green glen like the Clyde. The

people attested its length by asserting, in true African style,

"If you sail along it for months, you will turn without seeing

the end of it:" European geographers apparently will not

understand that this declaration shows only the ignorance of the

natives concerning everything a few miles beyond their homes. The

explorer (February 27,1854) places the ford in south latitude 11°

15' 47", and his map shows east longitude (G.), 21° 40' 30",

about 7° 30' (=450 direct geographical miles) from Novo Redondo

on the Western Coast. He dots its rise in the "Balobale country,"

south latitude 12° to 13°, and east longitude 19° to 20°.

Pursuing his course, Dr. Livingstone (March 30) first sighted the

Quango (Coango) as it emerged from the dark jungles of Londa, a

giant Clyde, some 350 yards broad, flowing down an enormous

valley of denudation. He reached it on April, 1854, in south

latitude 9° 53', and east longitude (G.) 18° 37', about 300

geographical linear miles from the Atlantic. Three days to the

west lies the easternmost station of Angola, Cassange: no

Portuguese lives, or rather then lived, beyond the Coango Valley.

The settlers informed him that eight days' or about 100 miles'

march south of this position, the sources are to be found in the

"Mosamba Range" of the Basongo country; this would place them in

about south latitude 12° to 13° and east longitude (G.) 18° to

19°.

The heights are also called in Benguela Nanos, Nannos, or Nhanos

(highlands);[FN#18] and in our latest maps they are made to

discharge from their seaward face the Coango and Cuanza to the

west and north, the Kasai to the north-east and possibly to the

Congo, the Cunene south-westwards to the Atlantic, and southwards

the Kubango, whose destination is still doubtful. Dr. Charles

Beke ("Athenæum," No. 2206, February 5, 1870), judged from

various considerations that the "Kassábi" rising in the primeval

forests of Olo-vihenda, was the "great hydrophylacium of the

continent of Africa, the central point of division between the

waters flowing to the Mediterranean, to the Atlantic, and to the

Indian Ocean"--in fact, the head-water of the Nile. I believe,

however, that our subsequent information made my late friend

abandon this theory.

On his return march to Linyanti, Dr. Livingstone, who was no

longer incapacitated by sickness and fatigue, perceived that all

the western feeders of the "Kasa" flow first from the western

side towards the centre of the continent, then gradually turn

with the main stream itself to the north, and "after the

confluence of the Kasai with the Quango, an immense body of water

collected from all these branches, finds its way out of the

country by means of the River Congo or Zaire, on the Western

Coast" (chap. xxii.). He adds: "There is but one opinion among

the Balonda respecting the Kasai and the Quango. They invariably

describe the Kasai as receiving the Quango, and beyond the

confluence assuming the name of Zairé or Zerézeré. And thus he

verifies the tradition of the Portuguese, who always speak of the

Casais and the Coango as "suppôsto Congo." It is regrettable that

Dr. Livingstone has not been more explicit upon the native names.

The Balonda could hardly have heard of the semi-European term

Zaire, which is utterly unknown even at the Yellalas. On the

other hand, it must be borne in mind that Maxwell was informed by

native travellers that the river 600 miles up country was still

called "Enzaddi," and perhaps the explorer merely intends Zairé

to explain Zerézeré. It is hardly necessary to notice Douville's

assertion (ii. 372).

Meanwhile the late Ladislaus Magyar, who had previously informed

the Benguelan Government that the Casais was reported to fall

into the Indian Ocean at some unknown place, in 1851 followed

this great artery lower than any known traveller. He heard that,

beyond his furthest exploration point (about south latitude 6°

30,[FN#19] and east longitude, G. 22°), it pursues a north-

easterly direction and, widening several miles, it raises waves

which are dangerous to canoes. The waters continue to be sweet

and fall into a lake variously called Mouro or Moura (Moráve or

Marávi?), Uhanja or Uhenje (Nyanza?), which is suspected to be

the Urenge or Ulenge, of which Livingstone heard in about south

latitude 3°, and east longitude (G.) 26°. The Hungarian traveller

naturally identified it with the mythical Lake Nyassa which has

done such portentous mischief in a day now gone by. Ladislaus

Magyar also states:[FN#20] "The Congo rises, I have convinced

myself by reports, in the swamp named Inhan-ha occupying the high

plateau of Moluwa, in the lands of the Luba, uniting with the

many streams of this region; at a distance of about five days

from the source it becomes a deep though narrow river, which

flows to the westward, through a level country covered with dense

forests, whose frequent streams coming from the north (?) and

south are taken up "by the river; then it bends north-westward

under the name of Kuango." Here we find the drowned lands, the

"sponges" of Livingstone, who, however, placed the sources much

further to the south-east.

Dr. Livingstone's third and last expedition, which began on March

24, 1866, and which ended (1873) with fatal fitness in the swamps

of the Bangweolo, suggests a new and more distant derivation for

the mighty Congo. After travelling from the Rovuma River to Lake

Nyassa, the great explorer in l867-8 came upon an "earthern

mound," west of Lake Bangweolo or Bemba, in about south latitude

11°; and here he places the sources of the Nile, where

geographers have agreed provisionally to place the sources of the

Congo. Already, in 1518, Fernandez de Enciso (Suma de

Geographia), the "theoretical discoverer" of Kilimanjaro, was

told by the Congoese that their river rises in high mountains,

from which another great stream flows in an opposite direction--

but this might apply to more watersheds than one. The subject is

treated at considerable length in an article by Dr. E.

Behm,[FN#21] certain of whose remarks I shall notice at the end

of this chapter.