STANLEY AND THE MAP OF AFRICA. 287 



For a considerable stretch it is navigable, and its entire length, taking 

 all its windings into account, from its source to the Congo, is 800 miles. 

 One of its tributaries turns out to be another river which Junker met 

 further north, and whose destination was a puzzle. — The Nepoko. 



Thus this expedition has enabled us to form clearer notions of the 

 hj'drography of this remarkable region of rivers. We see that the 

 sources of the Congo and the Nile lie almost within a few yards of each 

 other. Indeed, so difticult is it to determine to which river the various 

 waters in this region send their tribute that Mr. Stanley himself, in his 

 first letter, was confident that the southern Lake Albert belonged to the 

 Congo and not to the Nile system. It was only actual inspection that 

 convinced him he was mistaken. How it is that the Ituri or the 

 Aruwimi and other rivers in the same region are attracted to the Congo 

 and not to the Nile is easily seen from Mr. Stanley's graphic descrip- 

 tion of the lny of the country between the Congo and the Albert Nyanza. 

 It is, he says, like the glacis of a fort, some 350 miles long, sloping 

 gradually up from the margin of the Congo (itself at the Aruwimi 

 mouth 1,400 feet above the sea), until ten miles beyond one of the 

 Ituri feeders it reaches a height of 5,200 feet to descend almost per- 

 pendicularly 2,900 feet to the surface of the lake, which forms the great 

 western reservoir of the Nile. 



But when the term "glacis" is used, it must not be inferred that the 

 ascent from the Congo to Lake Albert is smooth and unobstructed. 

 The fact is that Mr. Stanley found himself involved in the northern 

 section of what is probably the most extensive and densest forest region 

 in Africa. Livingstone si>ent many a weary day trudging its gloomy^ 

 recesses away south at Nyangwe on the Lualaba. It stretches tor many 

 miles north to the Moubuttu country. Stanley entered it at Yambuya, 

 and tunnelled his way through it to within 50 miles of the Albert 

 Nyanza, when it all of a sudden ceased and gave way to grassy plains 

 and the unobstructed light of day. How far west it may extend be- 

 yond the Aruwimi he can not say ; but it was probably another section 

 of this same forest region that Mr. Paul du Chaillu struck some 30 

 years ago, when gorilla hunting in the Gaboon. Mr. Stanley estimates 

 the area of this great forest region at about 300,000 square miles, which 

 is more likely to be under than over the mark. The typical African 

 forest, as Mr. Drummond shows in his charming book on "Tropical 

 Africa," is not of the kind found on the Aruwimi, which is much more 

 South American than African. Not even in the "great sponge," from 

 which the Zambesi and the Congo draw their remote supplies, do we 

 meet with such impenetrable density. Trees scattered about as in an 

 English park in small open clumj^s form, as a rule, the type of "forest" 

 common in Africa. The physical causes which led to the dense packing 

 of trees over the immense area between the Congo and the Nile Lakes 

 will form an interesting investigation. Mr. Stanley's description of the 

 great forest region, in his letter to Mr. Bruce, is well worth quoting: 



