84 CAPTAIN TUCKEY’S NARRATIVE. 
and in two hours and a half we reached the Congo sloop, 
laying about ten miles from the point. 
The berth she occupied I found was about half a mile 
from the south shore, nearly opposite Sherwood’s creek, 
(Fuma of the natives). The current here at its maximum ran 
3% miles an hour, but was subject to very great irregularities, 
apparently from the combined effects of a regular tide, and 
of eddies formed by the points of land or banks. These 
effects were frequently so great as to entirely overcome the - 
stream, and create perfect slack water of various duration 
from half an hour to five minutes. The rise and fall of 
tide by the shore, as marked on the roots of the mangrove, 
was 2* feet. The water thus high is too brackish for use, 
and though perfectly colourless in a glass, has the same red 
appearance as we remarked off Cabenda. 
Hitherto the river has presented no appearance to inspire 
the idea of magnitude equal to that of a river of the 
first class; unless we were indeed to consider the estuary 
formed between the Sonio and Moena Mazea shore, as 
the absolute embouchure of the river, than which certainly 
nothing would be more erroneous; the true mouth of the 
river being at Fathomless Point, where it is not three miles in 
breadth ; and allowing the mean depth to be 40 fathoms, 
and the mean velocity of the stream 42 miles an hour, it 
