Up the Congo River. 
9i 
sweep of vision to the embouchure, and masked 
by forest from Porto da Lenha. It is easily known 
by its two tall trees, and that nearest the sea, 
when viewed from the east, appears surmounted 
by what resemble the “ Kangaroo’s Headthey 
are cones of regular shape, covered to the topmost 
twig with the lightest green Flagellaria. The 
“ bush ” now becomes beautiful, rolling in bulging 
masses of verdure to the very edge of the clear 
brown stream. As in the rivers of Guinea, the 
llianas form fibrous chains, varying in size from a 
packthread to a cable ; now straight, then twisted ; 
investing the trees with an endless variety of 
folds and embraces, and connecting neighbours 
by graceful arches like the sag of an acrobat’s rope. 
Here and there a grotesque calabash contrasted 
with the graceful palms towering in air for warmth 
and light, or bending over water like Prince of 
Wales’s feathers. The unvarying green was en¬ 
livened by yew-like trees with scarlet flowers, 
the “ Burning Bush ” of Sierra Leone, setting off 
the white boles of the cotton-trees ; and the whole 
was edged by the yellow green of the quaint pan- 
danus hung with heavy fruit. 
A little beyond “ Mariquita Nook” the right 
bank becomes a net-work of creeks, “ obscure 
channels,” tortuous, slimy with mud, banked with 
the snake-like branches of trees, and much re¬ 
sembling the lower course of the Benin, or any 
other north equatorial African river; the forest is 
