OUT INTO THE ATLANTIC. 
523 
lity of their country, or suffering from some wrongs per- 
petrated by tribes near Boma, they did not regard our 
advent to their country with kindly eyes by any means. 
Indeed, since leaving Ntombo Mataka we had observed 
a growing degradation of the aborigines, who were vastly 
inferior in manners and physical type to the Babwende. 
They talked “ largely,” but we had been accustomed to 
that, and our sense of self-respect had long ago become 
deadened. We obtained a little food — a supply of ground- 
nuts and bitter cassava ; otherwise we must have died. 
On the 30th of July we continued our journey along 
the right bank. We first passed several serrated schis- 
tose reefs ; and behind these we saw a deep creek -like 
cove — no doubt the Covinda Cove of Tuckey. 
Observing at Rock Bluffs Point that the river was 
ruffled by rocks, we struck again to the left bank, and, 
following the grove-clad bend, we saw a fine reach of 
river extending north-west by north, with a breadth 
of about 1800 yards. Again we crossed the river to 
the right bank, and a mile from Rock Bluffs Point 
came to some rapids which extended across the river. 
We passed these easily, however, and continued on our 
journey under the shelter of brown stone bluffs, from 
fifty to eighty feet high. On the left side of the river 1 
observed a line of rock-islets close to the shore. At the 
end of this long reach was a deep bend in the right bank, 
through which a lazy creek oozed slowly into the Living- 
stone. From this bend the great river ran south-south- 
west, and the roar of a great cataract two miles below 
became fearfully audible, and up from it light clouds of 
mist, and now and then spray showers, were thrown high 
into view. Towering above it, on the left, was the pre- 
cipitous shoulder of a mountain ridge, the summit of 
which appeared crescent-shaped as we approached it from 
above. Picking our way towards it cautiously, close to 
projected reefy points, behind which are the entrances to 
the recesses in the mountainous bank already described, 
we arrived within fifty yards of the cataract of Isangila, 
or Tuckey ’s tc Second Sangalla.” 
We drew our boat and canoes into a sandy-edged basin 
