6o 
Into the Congo River . 
even to swallow the ocean, which before he never 
saw, with his mouth wide gaping eight-and-twenty 
miles, as Lopez 1 affirmeth, in the opening; but 
meeting with a more giant-like enemie which lies 
lurking under the cliffes to receive his assault, is 
presently swallowed in that wider womb, yet so 
as, always being conquered, he never gives over, 
but in an eternall quarrel, with deeper and in¬ 
dented frownes in his angry face, foaming with 
disdaine, and filling the aire with noise (with fresh 
helpe), supplies those forces which the salt sea 
hath consumed.” 
I was disappointed after the Gambia and Ga¬ 
boon rivers in the approach to the Congo. About 
eight miles south of the mouth the green sea 
changed to a clear brown which will be red during 
the flood. Some three degrees (F. 79 0 to 82°) cooler 
than the salt tide, the lighter water, which was fresh 
as rain, feathered out like a fan ; a rippling noise was 
faintly audible, and the clear lines of white foam 
had not time to melt into the coloured efflux. 
The flow was diverted into a regular curve north¬ 
wards by the South Atlantic current; voyagers 
from Ascension Island to the north-west therefore 
feel the full throb of the great riverine pulse, and 
1 Duarte Lopez, the Portuguese Captain, whose journals were 
used by Pigafetta. He went to the Congo regions in 1578, 
and stayed there ten years. “ Philipp’s Voyages,” vol. iii. p. 
236. 
