54 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
_ The negro can only be ruled by gentle firmness, and the 
long-suffering missionaries are the worst people possible 
to deal with him. A “rule of love” he takes for a con- 
fession of weakness, and abuses it accordingly. When 
I had once entered Palabala, where the Livingstone 
missionaries have been patiently working for three years, 
I could not leave it, either to go backwards or forwards, 
until I had paid the rascally old king, Kongo-Mpaka, in 
the missionary’s presence, a present of gin to the value 
of 25s. The missionary felt humiliated at having to 
interpret the king’s demand, but it was a case of force 
majeure, and my kind host was powerless in the matter, 
having been so often exposed to forced contributions 
himself. However, this is all altered now.* Mr. Stanley's 
agents have recently made treaties with the chiefs at 
Palabala and in the neighbourhood, and as a result of 
their efforts the southern road now no longer offers the 
slightest difficulty to even a solitary traveller. I returned 
to Vivion the first day of the New Year, 1883, and was in 
time to participate in avery enjoyable dinner which 
celebrated the Jour de l’An. The succeeding week was 
occupied in making various excursions and in preparing 
for my great journey up the river, which was tu take place 
with the help, and under the auspices of Mr. Stanley’s 
expedition. Amongst the various shorter trips, however, 
which I made at different times to places in the 
neighbourhood of Vivi, was a visit to the celebrated 
Falls of Yelala, the greatest and first-known rapids of 
the Congo, which I will here describe because of their 
natural sequence to the country already treated of, 
although I did not actually see them until my return 
from the upper river. 
The Falls of Yelala are only some nine miles from Vivi 
as the crow flies, but by the winding road it is a distance 
of thirteen or fourteen. I started amid the morning mists 
that marked the commencement of the dry season. The 
* Still more so in 1892, when the adapts are semi-civilized, quiet 
and contented under Congo "Free State rule-—H. H. J. | 
