MSUATA. 183 
blocked by sand-banks—of the Lawson or Alima * river, 
on the western bank of the Congo, and then came in view 
of the great Kwa River, finally passing the point of 
_ Ganchu, and its dangerous current, and arriving at Msuata 
towards noon. Here Janssen gave us his usual hearty 
welcome and good cheer, and here I proceeded to settle 
down with my three Zanzibaris into comfortable quarters, 
looking forward to a long rest after my tiring journeys. 
Orban bade us farewell at Msuata. He was going on in~ 
the boat to Stanley Pool, and intended to regain the coast 
in order to recruit his health. Msuata has many ad- 
vantages as a centre of study, as a place to spend a few 
months of research in Natural History subjects. It is 
fairly healthy, well provided with good native food— 
eighty fowls can, if necessary, be bought in one day from 
the surrounding villages—the scenery in the environs is 
pretty and accessible, while the kindly natives leave 
nothing to desire either for amiability or gentle demeanour. 
Life was pleasantly monotonous, but although the 
programme of my day was almost unvarying in its 
arrangement, the details of each branch ‘of study offered 
continual novelty and change, and, in the-same sense that 
“happy are the people who have no history,” so, although 
no wonderful adventures or marvellous occurrences hap- 
pened to me here, I yet look back on these six weeks passed 
at Msuata as the happiest time I have known in Africa. 
“Les jours s écoulent et se ressemblent,” and the detailed 
description of the way one day was spent at this station 
will serve as a history of the remaining forty-one, with 
the few rare or exceptional incidents inserted. 
My daily life begins at about half-past five, when I 
become dimly conscious that the curtain covering the 
doorway of my room is no longer opaque, but that a 
cold bright light is filtering through. Then I notice the 
strange silence: the crickets have suddenly ceased their 
exasperating “creek, creek creek,’ which has been going 
on all night, and there is a slight pause in nature between 
* Tt was down this river that De Brazza came when he journeyed 
‘from the Upper Ogowé to the Conga, 
