ft 14 AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
Indeed, the chiefs were so grateful that they offered 
to take the canoes themselves a distance of three miles 
to the sand-beaches on the right bank opposite Kinzale 
Kigwala — and the offer was gladly accepted. 
The Ntombo Mataka people I regarded as the politest 
people I had encountered in Africa, and they certainly 
distinguished themselves by a nobility of character that 
was as rare as it was agreeable. 
Arrived at the beautiful camping-place below the 
falls, I proceeded in a canoe to a cluster of low rocky 
islets, to view the cataract which we had so agreeably 
and pleasantly passed, and it struck me at the time that 
this was the great cataract described by Tuckey as 
being above that “ Farthest ” which has been printed 
on so many charts. The cataract has a formidable 
appearance from the centre of the river as one looks 
upward, and during the rainy season the whole of the 
rocky dyke is covered with water, which would then 
give a direct fall of twenty feet. The natives of 
Ntombo Mataka were not aware of any more obstruc- 
tions below of any importance. About five miles north- 
north-east of this point is the large and popular market- 
place of Manyanga, where the natives of Ngoyo, 
Kakongo, Ntombo Mataka, Ngombi, Ilemba, Ivingoma, 
Kilanga, Ivinzore, Suki, Nguru, Mbelo, Zinga, Mowa, 
and Nzabi, up river, meet the natives of Nclunga, Mbu, 
Bakongo, and Bassesse. 
On 19 th of July we cautiously descended three miles 
to Mpangu, on the right bank. From the slope of the 
table-land there is projected a line of lower hills, tawny 
with sere and seeding grass, and gently sloping sides, 
smooth shores marked by extensive lengths of sand- 
banks, and here and there on the lower levels a cassava 
garden. But though the river is much wider, the 
rapids are frequent, rocky projections from the schistose 
rocks on the right breaking the river’s surface, while 
along the centre sweeps the mighty stream fiercely and 
hoarsely. 
The schistose dykes which thus interrupt the river are 
from a few hundred yards to a mile apart, and between 
