30 THROUGH ANGOLA 



both in climate and in appearance undistinguishable 

 from the neighbouring Belgian Congo. There are 

 English and French traders as well as Portuguese 

 at Cabinda, and the pallor of the people was enough 

 to condemn the climate of a country which is 

 purely tropical and unhealthy. 



A few hours after leaving Cabinda, we passed 

 through the estuary of the Congo. Curious it was 

 to see the yellow water of the river mixing with 

 the green of the ocean, for in places the yellow 

 formed undefined bands in the green, bands 

 crested with scum from the river. The Congo is 

 geologically quite a young river. It has yet 

 formed no delta, and has possibly only just broken 

 through to the sea, from a great lake which it is 

 thought existed where the lower Congo Free State 

 is placed to-day. 



We completed the crossing of the Congo 

 estuary during the night, and dawn found us off 

 port San Antonio and the true Angolan coast, 

 facing a landscape different to anything I had seen 

 in any other part of Africa, for here and all the 

 way as we sailed southwards the land of was a 

 reddish colour ; near the coast were low hills, and 

 beyond these, yet more hills appeared to rise in the 

 distance. There was no forest coming down to the 

 beach, as one knew it on the equatorial west coast. 

 Here, if the green life of the land did come down 

 to meet the green-brown sea, it was because a 

 river had brought its tree belt with it, while man- 

 groves as an advanced guard stood root-high in 

 the brackish waters of the estuary. The reddish 

 hills were dotted with baobabs, euphorbias, and 



