266 In the Heart of Africa 



the lower serving partly as a cargo hold and partly as quarters 

 for the black passengers and crew. On the upper level there is 

 accommodation for Europeans. There are about sixteen cabins 

 amidships, arranged in two rows, with their doors and ports 

 opening on to the promenade deck, a passage way of about one 

 and a half metres width encircling the whole vessel. We took 

 our meals in a spacious part of the foreship, behind the captain's 

 cabin, where there was a full passage for the air, and protection 

 from the rain in the shape of curtains which could be let down. 

 Taken all in all, the Flandre greatly surpassed our expectations 

 with regard to the comfort of a Congo steamer. Our feeling of 

 gratitude was still further increased by the kindness of the 

 Government in having placed the steamer exclusively at our dis- 

 posal. Thus, excepting ourselves, there were only four Belgians 

 who had accepted my offer of a passage and had come aboard 

 with us. 



Basoko is one kilometre distant from the confluence of the 

 Congo and the Aruwimi. So we still awaited the great moment 

 when we should gaze on the mightiest river of the continent, 

 yet the actual sight of it was far less impressive to us than it 

 seemed to have been to the earlier trans-African travellers 

 Stanley and Count Gotzen. Our fourteen days' passage down 

 the Aruwimi had accustomed us to the sight of huge expanses 

 of water, so that, naturally, we could scarcely be seized with 

 the same feelings that filled our predecessors at the sight of the 

 Congo after their long years of hardship, privation, famine and 

 danger. Thus, we hardly noticed the Congo, or any particular 

 difference between the familiar picture of the lower Aruwimi and 

 this new stream, which did not appear much broader. The reason 

 of this lies mainly in the fact that during our entire Congo 

 passage we never received the full impression of its immense 

 breadth and might, although at its widest spot it exceeds thirty 

 kilometres, for countless islands, sometimes a mile in length, 

 succeed one another in an almost unbroken chain and obstruct the 

 view. 



The district chief at Basoko had recommended us to inspect 



