116 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
we stopped at the village of Ngoma.* Here an old 
fetish-man and some young disciples were performing a 
sort of dance, in which they hopped about like frogs, 
squatted on their heels, and waved their hands downwards 
from the heavens. I was told they were calling down 
the rain—surely a most superfluous appeal to the clerk of 
the weather, who took care to souse us every day. Other 
of the inhabitants, more indolent, or conscious of the 
inutility of supplicating Providence, were reclining in 
different postures in lazy ease, having their hair dressed 
by women. 
From Ngoma it was a trying march of fifteen. nies to 
Léopoldville, and as I was suffering badly from an ulcer 
on the ankle, the road seemed doubly long; and when at 
length I limped into the station, I was in need of the kind 
reception accorded me. A late breakfast was soon got 
ready, and they gave me a splendid cucumber grown in 
the station garden. 
You do not get a glimpse of Stanley Pool until you are 
quite close to Léopoldville, and it is then, on turning 
round the hill-side, that the magnificent prospect (3 it 
bursts upon your view. 
Léopoldville, like most of Mr. Stanley’s stations, is 
placed on rising ground,} but it does not occupy for its 
site the exact summit of the hill, being built on what may 
be called a semicircular ledge round the slope which faces 
the expanding Pool. 
The principal edifice of the station is a large two-storied 
house made of wood, bricks, and a sort of mud plaster. 
The roof is of thatch, for the sake of coolness, and all the 
framework of the house is composed of huge beams of 
wood, apparently of great strength, but really a source of 
weakness, as the wood is being constantly eaten through 
by the white ants and other insect pests, so that frequently 7 
a beam gives way, and is renewed only just in time to 
save the “structure. This house contains a large dining- 
* Ngoma means “drum.” It is a word often applied to a sounding 
fall of water. 
+ And is very unhealthy in consequence.-H, H. J. 
