294 FEEDERS OF THE CONGO. 
could not but admire their capabilities for easy irrigation 
On reaching the river Chikapa, (lat. 10° 10' S., long. 19° 42 
E.,) the 25th of March, we found it fifty or sixty yards wide, 
and flowing E.N.E. into the Kasai. The adjacent country is 
of the same level nature as that part of Londa formerly 
described ; but, having come farther to the eastward thai 
our previous course, we found that all the rivers had worn 
for themselves much deeper valleys than at the points we had 
formerly crossed them. 
Surrounded on all sides by large gloomy forests, the 
people of these parts have a much more indistinct idea of 
the geography of their country than those who live in hilly 
regions. It was only after long and patient inquiry that I 
became fully persuaded that the Quito runs into the Chi- 
kapa. As we now crossed them both considerably farther 
down, and were greatly to the eastward of our first route, 
there can be no doubt that these rivers take the same 
course as the others, into the Kasai, and that I had been 
led into a mistake in saying that any of them flowed to 
the westward. Indeed, it was only at this time that I 
began to perceive that all the western feeders of the Kasai, 
except the Quango, flow first from the western side toward 
the centre of the country, then gradually turn, with the 
Kasai itself, to the north, and, after the confluence of the 
Kasai with the Quango, an immense body of water, col- 
lected from all these branches, finds its way out of the 
country by means of the river Congo or Zaire, on the west 
coast. 
The people living along the path we are now following 
were quite accustomed to the visits of native traders, and 
did not feel in any way bound to make presents of food 
except for the purpose of cheating : thus, a man gave me 
a fowl and some meal, and after a short time returned. 
I offered him a handsome present of beads; but these he 
declined, and demanded a cloth instead, which was far 
more than the value of his gift. They did the same with 
<ay men, until we had to refuse presents altogether. Others 
