The Katanga 



bottle ; eggs gi. ooc. per dozen ; butter 3f. 50c. to 4f. 00c. 

 per lb. 



The foregoing gives an outline of the conditions prevailing 

 in the Congo Copper Belt which we were to leave behind us 

 on our long northward journey. 



The trip from Elisabethville along the lately completed 

 line to Bukama on the Lualaba River will take the traveller 

 some forty hours, including the wait of an hour or more at 

 Kambove. After leaving the latter place there is a gradual 

 rise to the more open country around Chilongo, on the 

 southern end of the Manika Plateau, where the climate is 

 cold and invigorating, standing as it does on the watershed 

 between the Lufira and Lualaba Valleys at an elevation of 

 nearly 5,000 feet above sea-level. From here the descent 

 into the Lualaba Valley begins, at first passing through 

 immense open plains and then again into the thick forest as 

 before. On reaching the Kalule and Kalcngwe Rivers close 

 to the Lualaba the scenery is enthralling, and so helps one 

 to forget the danger, or what feels like danger, attendant 

 upon the crossing of the shaky trestle wooden bridges that 

 span some of the gorges and cataracts. These timber bridges 

 are of so bad a design that some of the engine-drivers refuse 

 to take the big American engines across them. However, 

 they are to be replaced by iron structures as soon as the 

 material is available. 



The mail train arrives at Bukama in the night. This 

 place is of an uninteresting nature, hot and feverish to a 

 marked degree, with no accommodation for travellers and 

 no fresh food obtainable. This is unfortunate, as one usually 

 has to wait here several days for a river steamer. The 

 Lualaba River at Bukama being found to be too shallow 



5 



