Boma, at the head of the Congo delta, the great dépôt between the interior and the coast, owes its existence wholly to
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.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—
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,
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.
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—
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,