126 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
them as slaves. Where the Ba-teke have settled, on the 
south or eastern bank of the Congo, they form merely 
riverine colonies, and never extend their settlements many 
miles from its banks. 
The principal chiefs round the Pool are Bab Njali, who 
rules over Mfwa and the lower course of the impetuous — 
Jué river; Ngaliéma, the chief of Ntamo and the territory 
round Léopoldville; three more important chiefs at or 
near Kinshasha, of whom one, Bankwa, is very averse to 
Europeans ; and finally there is a great chief, fortunately 
of another way of thinking, at Kimpoko, where the 
Expedition possesses a flourishing station. Negaliéma is 
the chief with whom Mr. Stanley has come most into 
contact, for Léopoldville is built on land bought from him, 
and he is the nearest, and not the most agreeable neighbour 
of the station. At first he tried to act the bully, until he 
saw how inadequate his strength of one hundred and fifty 
guns would prove in any attack on Léopoldville. Now 
he is by turns a whining suppliant, a sulky neighbour, or 
a crafty intriguer. He is a man of rather strong character 
and decided will, having raised himself from the position 
of a mere slave to that of a powerful chief of slaves. This 
town of Ntamo or Kintamo (the prefix Ki rather implies 
“ district”), was founded and colonized by him, and he has . 
since enriched himself immensely by ivory trading. 
Nearly all the ivory brought down by the Ba-yansi traders 
from the Equator (whence they receive it from the 
Ba-ngala, who in their turn get it from some still more 
remote tribe) comes to his market, and passes through his 
hands to Lutete and Sao Salvador. 
I left Léopoldville, towards the end of February,” in a 
lenge lighter or whale-boat, rowed by a sturdy crew of Zan- 
| zivaris, ‘to ascend the Congo as far as Bolobo,a large native 
village about 220 miles ‘beyond Stanley Pool, where the 
last station of the Expedition had recently been founded. 
Our departure, as usual, was signalised by a downpour 
of rain that was almost exceptional in its force and dura- 
* The height of the rainy season, 
