70 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
pleasant, scrubby little bushes, giving no shade, and 
bearing unsightly, uneatable fruits. Along the little 
stream, where I go to take a bath, through the tall rank 
grass that borders the channel, buffaloes have passed and 
browsed some few hours before, and left some traces of 
their pasturing, the whole place being redolent of a farm-— 
yard smell. I undressed, and placed my clothes on the 
stones. Oh! the woes of inexperience. All along the 
road I had seen my men slapping themselves with leafy 
branches to keep off the flies, but I, being clothed, felt no 
inconvenience, and therefore drew no inference from their 
actions. Now that Iam naked myself, myriads of small 
black flies settle on me, and raise little points of blood 
wherever their needle-like probosces pierce the skin. My 
bath is but a short one, and is, while it lasts, total im- 
mersion, after which I hurriedly drag on my clothes, to 
screen my smarting, itching skin. ~ Black blood-sucking 
flies, little creatures, smaller almost than a midge, are a 
prominent annoyance in some parts of the “cataract” 
region. They are not so noticeable either on the lower 
river below the falls nor in the open forest country above 
Stanley Pool. The first night, after an eight-mile walk 
from Vivi, we camped above the little river Loa, in a 
country that was somewhat harsh and stony, although in 
the deep ravines there was thick forest. Here were 
growing in abundance large, compact bushes of Camoensia, 
a plant with a beautiful pendulous blossom of creamy- 
white, with a golden centre, and the very delicate, un- 
equally-shaped petals lined with a narrow bordering of 
dark brown. Camoensia* is a member of the great 
Leguminous or bean-like order of plants, but it has no very 
near allies in Africa or elsewhere. It was first noted by 
Welwitsch (the great German naturalist who so largely 
contributed to our knowledge of South-West African 
flora) in Angola, and he appropriately named so lovely 
and tender a flower after the great poet of his adopted 
country.| In the still, warm night, the clove-like odour 
* C. maxima, in this case—see illustration, Chapter XII. 
+ Welwitsch was in the employ of the Portuguese Government. 
