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STANLEY POOL TO THE KWA RIVER. 151i 
banks of the Congo. A curious roller-bird, Hurystomus, is 
found here, and in small numbers mobs and chases fiercely 
the hawks and fishing-eagles of the river. 
The country in the neighbourhood of Msuata is thickly 
populated, in fact we are beginning to enter the densely- 
peopled basin of the Upper Congo. 
The villages hereabouts belong principally to the Ba- 
teke men, and the Ba-yansi people that one meets with 
are mostly traders aud not as yet settled in any permanent 
colonies. Farther up the Congo, these two races are 
strangely intermixed, the villages being often alternately 
of either nationality. Still, while the Ba-teke seem to 
have their real home and origin to the N.W. and towards 
the Ogowé, the Ba-yansi come from farther up the river, 
and border on the (so-called) savage Ba-ngala of the 
Equator. 
February 28th.—We started this morning for the mouth 
of the Kwa or Wabima River, fifteen miles from Msuata, 
where I intended to stop the night in a large village. On 
our way we passed the curious promonotory of Ganchu— 
a long spit of land advancing into the river, which seems 
to alternate between island and peninsula. Here is 
situated the village of Ganchu, ruled by an important and 
powerful chief of that name, who, like Lutete and other | 
minor potentates on the Congo, gives his name to his 
residential town. The houses of this village are mostly 
built on piles, evidently, as the ground is low, to minimise 
the dangers and inconveniences of a flood. It was this 
village that Stanley, on his first and celebrated descent of 
the Congo, imagined to be inhabited by river pirates, mis- 
understanding the peaceful intention of the inhabitants, 
and it was for some time, I believe, marked “ Piraten 
Dorf” on the German maps. 
At the mouth of the Kwa River (which, parenthetically, 
I might mention flows from Lake Léopold II., joins the 
great Kwango from Angola, and enters the Congo about 
3 20' S. latitude*) is a large and populous Ba-yansi 
* The Kwa River stream at its juncture with the Congo is about 
as broad as the Thames at Westminster, The landscapes and river- 
