A Visit to Banzct Chisalla. 125 
used to entertain the factors at dinner, imitating 
them from soup to cheese; his only objections were 
to tea, and to drinking toasts out of anything but 
the pet skull of an enemy : it was afterwards 
placed upon his grave. 
Boma is no longer “ the emporium of the Congo 
Empire,” if it ever did deserve that title. Like 
Porto da Lenha, it is kept up by the hopes of 
seeing better days, which are not doomed to 
dawn. Even at the time of my visit some 400 to 
500 negroes were under guard in a deserted fac¬ 
tory, and, whilst we were visiting Nessalla, they 
were marched down to bathe. When I returned 
from the cataracts, the barracoon contained only 
fifty or sixty, the rest having been shunted off to 
some unguarded point. At a day’s notice a thou¬ 
sand, and within a week 3,000 head could be pro¬ 
cured from the adjoining settlements, where the 
chattels are kept at work. As in Tuckey’s day, 
“ those exported are either captives in war or con¬ 
demned criminals.” During the Free Emigration 
as much as $80 have been paid per man, a large 
sum for “Congoes whilst a cargo of 500 “ Minas” 
(Guinea negroes) loses at most 20 per cent., these 
less hardy gangs seldom escape without at least 
double the deaths by dysentery or some other 
epidemic. Now they are freely offered for $10 to 
$20, but there are no buyers; the highest bid of 
which I heard was $100 for a house-" help.” 
