SCIENCE. 



[Vol. V., No. 100. 



known to the slave-trader and the English 

 cruisers. Since the suppression of the slave- 

 trade, Portuguese, English, Dutch, and French 

 traders have established factories or trading- 

 stations at many places on the coast from 17° 

 north to the Cape. On the Niger and its tribu- 

 tary, the Benue, are many English stations ; 

 and small steamers run regularly up and down 

 these rivers, carrying in the cotton of Man- 

 chester, and bringing away the products of 

 Africa. Within the last two } T ears the Ger- 

 mans have established trading-stations at three 

 different places on the western coast. 



This country has been regarded as the most 

 unhealthy portion of the world, lying under 

 the equator ; the soil low and marshy ; the cli- 



both sides of the equator, with a free naviga- 

 tion above Leopold ville, according to Stanley, 

 of 4,520 miles. In its valley there is an abun- 

 dance of flowing streams. The drinking-water 

 is magnificent ; the temperature delightful, the 

 thermometer ranging from 87° at noon, to 60° 

 at two a.m. The land is rich, and adapted to 

 the growth of most tropical and semi-tropical 

 products, among which are India-rubber, gums, 

 sugar, and cotton. The country is probably as 

 health} T as the fertile prairies of our own great 

 west, and capable of raising immense crops of 

 all the tropical productions. 



There are two seasons, — a wet and a dry. 

 In the rainy weather a large part of the day is 

 pleasant, storms arise suddenly and with little 



CENTRAL AFRICA, WITH THE COURSE OF THE KONGO. 



mate moist, damp, and malarious ; the abode of 

 all kinds of tropical fevers. The Kongo was 

 barred by great falls near its mouth, and was 

 so unhealthy, that out of a party of fifty-one, 

 under English officers, who explored the" river 

 in 1816, only one returned alive. Now on the 

 Kongo, above the falls, are between forty and 

 fifty trading-stations, with small steamboats 

 running from Leopoldville on Stanley Pool, 

 three hundred miles from its mouth, to Stanley 

 Falls, nine hundred miles from Leopoldville. 

 While on the coast the country is low, flat, 

 and unhealthy, south of the equator it rises 

 a short distance from the coast, until it reaches 

 a level of from twelve hundred to fifteen hun- 

 dred feet. The Kongo, king of African rivers, 

 and second only to the Amazon in the volume 

 of its waters, occupies an elevated plateau on 



warning, thunder roars, lightning flashes, wind 

 blows with great fury, rain pours clown in 

 sheets of water for an hour or two ; then as 

 suddenly the clouds pass away. On the coast 

 the raim T season lasts from November to 

 March ; but in the interior, rains commence 

 earlier, and continue later. 



There appears to be no great variety of races 

 among the natives ; though the tribes are very 

 numerous, each, with a different dialect, living 

 in constant warfare with its neighbors. Here 

 are the dwarfs and many tribes of cannibals. 

 The tribes inhabiting the coast have long been 

 acquainted with the Portuguese and English 

 traders ; furnishing ivory and slaves in ex- 

 change for beads, fire-arms, ammunition, rum, 

 and a little cotton cloth. These tribes, though 

 anxious to trade with the whites, are opposed 



