XXVili INTRODUCTION. 
draught of water ; but Lord Stanhope’s ideas were rejected 
by a committee of naval officers as crude and visionary, 
with the exception, we believe, of one individual. The 
Congo was schooner-rigged, and three parallel keels assisted 
in enabling her to hold a good wind. 
In the event of meeting with shallows, rapids, or cata- 
racts, of the existence of which no doubt could be enter- 
tained, though the accounts given of them were vague 
and uncertain, it was necessary that some lighter kind of 
vessel should be provided capable of being transported by- 
land ; Captain Tuckey proposed a double-boat built of 
light materials, drawing very little water, and which, when 
screwed together by means of a kind of connecting plat- 
form, should be able to carry from twenty to thirty men, 
with three months provisions; each boat was 35 feet 
long, and six feet broad, and when put together a canopy 
was fitted to keep off the sun and rain. A second double- 
boat was afterwards provided, and several smaller ones ; 
and as the size of the Congo was wholly inadequate to 
the stowage of these boats, with the provisions, water, pre- 
sents, &c. the Dorothy transport, of about $50 tons, was 
appointed to accompany the expedition into the river 
Zaire, when, after transhipping into the Congo all that 
could be deemed necessary for the prosecution of the 
great object of exploring the river, she was to return to 
England. 
The armament of the Congo, the quantities and the 
different kinds of provisions and refreshments, were left 
to the discretion of Captain Tuckey. Presents of the 
usual kind, such as iron tools, knives, glass ware, beads, 
bafts, umbrellas, &c. were put on board in such quantities 
