Boma . 
103 
The sea-like river wants nothing but cattle on its 
banks to justify the description— 
“ Appunto una scena pastorale, a cui fanno 
Quinci il mar, quinci i colli, e cP ogn’ intorno 
I fior, le piante, e 1’ ombre, e P onde, e J 1 cielo, 
Unteatro pomposoP’ 
In the centre of the broad stream, whose south¬ 
ern arm is not visible, are three islets. The western¬ 
most, backed by a long, grassy, palm-tasselled 
bank, is called Zunga chya Bundika. This Chom- 
bae Island of the charts is a rocky cone, dark with 
umbrella-shaped trees. Its north-eastern neigh¬ 
bour, Simule Kete, the Molyneux Island of Mr. 
Maxwell, the Hekay of Tuckey, and the Kekay of 
the chart, contrasts sharply with the yellow stubbles 
and the flat lines of Zunga chya Ngandi. Here, 
since Tuckey’s time, the trees have made way for 
grass and stones; the only remnants are clumps 
in the south-eastern, which is not only the highest 
point, but also the windy and watery direction. 
On the Congo course the foul weather is mostly 
from the “ sirocco/' where the African interior is 
a mass of swamps. At the mouth tornadoes come 
down the line of stream from the north-east, and I 
heard traditions of the sea-tornado, which blows in 
shore instead of off shore as usual. About the close 
of the last century one or other of these islands was 
proposed as a depot and settlement, which a few 
simple works would convert into a small Gibraltar. 
