CIVILIZATION 249 



natural richness of the Congo, the railway authorities 

 were in the deplorable position of having to feed 

 their workmen on preserved beef from America and 

 dried fish from Norway ! 



At Kindu we found one of the steamers which 

 bring up material for the railway, and it took us in 

 two days down the 200 miles of navigable water 

 between the Sendwe Rapids and Ponthierville, at 

 the head of Stanley Falls. In this part of its course 

 the Congo receives some very important tributaries, 

 notably the Elila, the Ulindi, the Lowa, and the 

 Lilu, all from the east, and from being a rapid 

 stream barely half a mile wide at the Sendwe Rapids 

 it swells out into a large lake four or five miles wide 

 above Ponthierville. The natives inhabiting the 

 villages where we stopped in this part of the Congo 

 were, without any exception, the most miserable I 

 have ever seen. Sleeping sickness had destroyed a 

 very large proportion of the population, and those 

 that were left were diseased and famine-stricken, 

 and were little more than skeletons. The few men 

 that we saw sat stolidly on the bank, while the 

 women — wretched, naked creatures — brought wood 

 for the steamer. We were told that they did this 

 voluntarily, and that they received no payment for 

 their trouble — a very exceptional state of things if it 

 was true. 



At Ponthierville we found ourselves at the begin- 

 ning of regular communication by rail and steamer 

 with the coast, and so with Europe, and there, so 



