The Eastern Congo 



It was therefore with Uttle surprise that I read the announce- 

 ment of Mr. Robert WiUiams, that his group had at last 

 formed a syndicate (the Nile-Congo Divide Syndicate) to 

 prospect this promising area. There is every reason to 

 suppose that the venture will be highly successful. 



I had it in mind to visit that interesting district known 

 as the Uele which borders on the Bahr-el-Ghazal, but deciding 

 that for entomological purposes the great forest of the Ituri 

 would yield me a richer harvest than the Uele valley, I 

 decided to terminate the expedition by adopting a homeward 

 route across the four hundred and sixty-five miles of forest 

 that separates Irumu from Stanleyville on the Congo River. 

 Both my wife and myself were beginning to feel wayworn 

 after our long journey and the hard life we led, so we decided 

 that if we accomplished this last excursion, we would be 

 due a holiday and would have made a thorough biological 

 survey of the eastern Congo. 



Having come to this decision we lost no time in making 

 preparations for the last lap, as we termed it. Owing partly 

 however to an outbreak of smallpox and the consequent 

 restrictions on the movements of natives, as well as other 

 causes, we were condemned to a tiresome wait at Irumu 

 of nearly three weeks. It was therefore well on into March 

 before porters could be obtained for us and we set our faces 

 to the west. 



Our porters on this occasion were a band of half-breed 

 pygmies from the lower Ituri, few of them over four feet six 

 inches in height, who carried our loads on their backs with 

 fibre slings passed around the forehead; so if the load 

 happened to be a fairly large and long one, the carrier became 

 completely hidden behind it. This method of portage, as 



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