50 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
missionaries. The missionary of the Livingstone Inland 
Mission, who was resident at Palabala, gave me a kind ~ 
reception, and a welcome meal was soon prepared for 
me by his orders. There were delicious fried bananas, 
pounded pea-nut sauce with roast chicken, “ palm-oil 
chop,” and many other native dishes, supplemented with 
a few European accessories. After dinner I attended 
prayers with the missionary in the school-house, where 
MOUTH OF MPOSO RIVER. 
an English lady, one of the members of the mission, 
was residing. Here some twenty people were assembled, 
principally boys. There was a little giggling at our 
approach, otherwise they were well-behaved. ‘The 
missionary prayed in Fiote (the language of the Lower 
Congo) and in English, and also read a chapter of the 
Bible in the same tongues. The subject in Fiote was not 
wisely chosen, being a wearisome record of Jewish wars, 
