372 



GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



Congo, and reports great changes from the 

 time of Stanley's voyage ten years ago. The 

 country is practically in the hands of Arabs 

 and Zanzibari slavers and traders, and the na- 

 tives have withdrawn into the forests. Im- 

 mense rice-fields border the river at the Arab 

 settlements. Kasonge is the headquarters of 

 Tippoo Tip and other Arab traders. 



Rev. Mr. Grenfell also explored the Lulongo 

 and the Juapa, navigable tributaries to the Con- 

 go from the left, in the mission steamer "Peace." 

 He describes the Lulongo as entering the Con- 

 go about 45 miles north of the Leire, its course 

 being almost directly west. Although not one 

 of the largest tributaries of the Congo, it is the 

 most important, he says, if the value of its ivo- 

 ry and slave trade be accepted as a measure. 

 At its mouth it is only about 500 yards wide, 

 though deep and swift ; a few miles above it is 

 from half to three quarters of a mile in width. 

 The travelers passed five towns, about ten or 

 twelve miles apart, built on islands and adjacent 

 mainland, evidently with a view to furnishing 

 a place of retreat in case of attack from either 

 the river or the interior. 



The series of towns next succeeding were 

 built on splendidly fruitful land, from 40 to 100 

 feet above the river, with farms about them in 

 which were great quantities of plantain. Af- 

 ter passing the town called Masumba, they 

 found but one small town, Lungunda, in a 

 stretch of 100 miles; then Maringa was reached, 

 and proved to be on the edge of a very popu- 

 lous district and a very busy one, as indicated 

 by the number of trading-canoes encountered. 

 The people of Maringa were evidently suspi- 

 cious of the strangers, and Mr. Grenfell says it 

 was not till after more than an hour had been 

 spent in diplomacy that he came into actual 

 contact with them. 



At Ditabi, three or four hours farther on, a 

 class of people differing considerably from 

 those down the river was met with. They 

 lived in houses raised on posts four or five feet 

 above the ground, though there seemed to be 

 no reason for fearing a flood. Their tribal 

 marks also were very different ; for they had 

 a row of lumps as large as peas right down 

 their noses, and their bodies covered with bean- 

 sized cicatrices about an inch apart. They car- 

 ried bows and arrows, and wore naked-bladed 

 knives upon their thighs, instead of being 

 armed with spears and sheathed knives. Several 

 blacksmiths fresh from their forges were seen. 

 The missionary's party had lost their fire-wood 

 by the sinking of their small boat farther down 

 the river. At Ditabi they offered beads for 

 fire-wood ; and the people were so anxious for 

 the beads that after exhausting their wood-piles, 

 they brought live sticks from their fires and 

 even cut up their wooden beds into suitable 

 lengths and sold them. Several more towns 

 built on posts over low ground were passed, 

 until an important market was reached where 

 no European goods were on sale, and no signs 

 of communication with civilization were seen 



except a little brass beaten into ornaments and 

 a few beads and cowries. Fish and crocodiles 

 were exchanged by the people of the river- 

 banks for farm-produce brought from the inte- 

 rior. They did not care for cloth ; an empty 

 biscuit-tin or a few beads went further than 

 a fathom of print. Seven more villages were 

 passed in as many miles, and then no more were 

 seen, though the journey extended 100 miles 

 farther. Some abandoned sites were passed, 

 however, and many paths to the water from 

 distant towns. At a point 400 miles from the 

 Congo the river was no longer navigable, and 

 the voyagers returned to the Congo, and after 

 going south for six hours began to ascend Mr. 

 Stanley's Black river. Some distance up this 

 river they were told that a short time before 

 a canoe had gone up the Bosira branch on a 

 trading-voyage ; that it had been seized by the 

 Irara people, who killed and ate the crew, sav- 

 ing only the chief's son, whom they were hold- 

 ing for ransom. The missionaries could not 

 induce the cannibals to restore him to his fa- 

 ther. Passing up the river, they had some 

 trouble to make friends of the natives in the 

 towns along the route. Among them was a 

 race of dwarfs, whom they found not to be as 

 small as the natives are fond of representing 

 them ; they are about four to four and a half 

 feet in height, and have black beards, big heads, 

 and no necks to speak of; their neighbors will 

 not admit that they have any necks at all. 

 Some of the natives shot arrows at them as 

 they advanced toward the end of navigation. 

 Mr. Grenfell regarded this region as the least 

 hopeful for mission-work of all he had visited. 

 Returning, the travelers steamed up the Juapa 

 for 400 miles. The people for some fifty miles 

 were friendly and hospitable ; but farther on 

 they seemed suspicious, and those still beyond 

 made hostile demonstrations, at one place at- 

 tacking the travelers with a shower of poi- 

 soned arrows. In all, nearly 1,000 miles of 

 new water-way were explored. 



Lake Liba, which is spoken of by the na- 

 tives of Cameroon, is supposed by Lieut. Mizon 

 not to be a lake at all, but a tributary of the 

 Congo, having its source on the eastern slope 

 of the Serra de Crist al; he thinks that this 

 river, if it is a river, whose source lies so near 

 the coast, will form the most convenient con- 

 nection with the Congo, believing that the 

 other routes laid out are much too costly ; he 

 especially condemns De Brazza's attempt to 

 recommend the Ogowe as a means of ship- 

 communication. 



It is ten years since Savorgnan de Brazza 

 first reached the Ogowe region ; and the la- 

 bors of those ten years have led to noteworthy 

 results. The French influence, which formerly 

 existed only on paper, is now represented by 

 an unbroken chain of stations reaching to the 

 Congo and by that part of the Congo basin and 

 the Kuilu-Niada territory secured to France by 

 the treaty of February, 1885, with the Congo 

 State. During the years 1883-'85, which De 



