2IO FROM KIVU TO TANGANYIKA 



there are no traders, and the officials at the State 

 posts are not allowed to sell to travellers. The con- 

 sequence is that you take a great many unnecessary 

 things and omit to take many that would have been 

 useful, and trust to luck to get through somehow. 

 We were fortified with powerful recommendations 

 from Brussels, and we were fortunate in keeping on 

 friendly terms with some of the officials, who occa- 

 sionally strained the law a little in matters of ex- 

 change, so that we had not any very serious trouble ; 

 but there was always the uncomfortable feeling that 

 we were there only on sufferance, as though we 

 were walking in somebody's private property. 



There is another feature of modern travel in 

 Central Africa, which does not compare favourably 

 with the ways of the old times of twenty or thirty 

 years ago. Formerly travellers, who entered the 

 country from the east, used to engage at the coast 

 Suahilis or Zanzibari porters, who were paid by the 

 month and continued for the whole of the journey. 

 Each porter knew his own load, and quickly learnt 

 his duties in the caravan, and when once their own 

 country was left well behind them, there was no 

 risk of the men running away. There was, of 

 course, a chance, if they were not kept well in hand, 

 of their causing trouble by looting the people of the 

 countries through which they passed, and there was 

 the business at the end of the journey of sending 

 them home ; but these drawbacks were more than 

 made up for by the convenience of recruiting 



