Feb. 27, I860.] BEDINGFELD ON THE CONGO. 71 



could do it. A very great preservative of health on that coast is to keep con- 

 stantly moving or at work; any cessation of labour or travelling is soon 

 attended with attacks of fever. Flannel next the skin is considered abso- 

 lutely necessary on the coast ; over it we found a loose dress of blue baize 

 very useful against the dampness and coolness of the dry season. 



For ascending the river there is no necessity whatever for a yacht schooner 

 or anything of the kind. On the Coast or at Punto de Lenha, where the Por- 

 tuguese, English, and American factories are estabhshed, a " lancha " or a 

 *' palhabote " could easily be hired, and the best possible conveyance to the 

 rapids above. Beyond that, I do not believe anything better for exploring can 

 be employed than the large native canoes. 



Not the least opposition to the expedition need be apprehended from the 

 Portuguese slave traders ; on the contrary, I think they would be very glad 

 that a party of Englishmen should risk their lives and money to open a road 

 into the interior, and induce the natives to bring down their produce, in the 

 expectation of an increased and cheaper supply of slaves, and because they 

 well kuow how innocent to their horrid interests are the efforts of Englishmen, 

 who, with a great flourish of representing the power and majesty of England, 

 attempt, single-handed, to put down this detestable traffic on immense coasts, 

 where the natives are the greatest slave-dealers (enabling them, as they say, 

 to be rich without working, and always as drunk as they please), and who 

 call on the weak and powerless authorities to do that which a whole British 

 squadron is unable to effect. 



Archdeacon Mackenzie said, of the two communications which had been 

 read, the one relating to the Congo was the more interesting to himself. That 

 river, possessing as it did a better mouth and a better harbour than any other 

 river south of the Equator in Africa, certainly seemed to offer a great opening 

 into the interior. But instead of giving up the Zambesi mission, as the paper 

 recommended, he would suggest another mission to the country of the Congo 

 as well. He did not see how they could interfere with each other, for they 

 would be far apart, there being a distance of two thousand miles across from 

 sea to sea. 



Mr. Crawfurd, f.r.g.s., called attention to the improvement which had been 

 effected in the breed of sheep and in the quality of wool produced at the Cape 

 through the exertions of Sir George Grey, and then expressed his concurrence 

 in the views of Captain Bedingfeld respecting the superiority of the Congo 

 over the Zambesi as a commercial route into the interior of Africa. Captain 

 Bedingfeld had seen both rivers, and ought to be a better judge of their re- 

 spective capabilities than persons at home or those who had seen but one of 

 them. The Zambesi was not really, commercially speaking, a navigable river 

 at all, while the Congo certainly was. What Captain Bedingfeld said about 

 cotton might be set aside, for it was idle to suppose that savages would ever 

 cultivate it so as to render it valiiable for commercial purposes. Such had 

 never happened. But there were many things they could produce, and among 

 them was the ground-nut, which produced an excellent oil. Still more 

 important was the palm, from which we obtained the now well-known palm- 

 oil. This oil was more valuable than olive-oil itself, and we imported 20,000 

 tons of it in 1858, of the value of one and a half million sterling. The culti- 

 vation of this palm — the Elais Guiniensis of botanists — has done more towards 

 the suppression of slavery than all the navies of France, England, and America 

 put together ; for the slave-trade had already actually ceased where the trade 

 in palm-oil was most active. Other reasons why he thought the Congo 

 superior to the Zambesi for the operations of Englishmen were, that the West 

 Coast of Africa was more fertile, and the natives were more civilised than on 

 the east coast, while the distance was not above one half from our own 

 shores. 



VOL. IV. G 



