134 Up the Congo to Banza Nokki. 
sweeps swiftly past, yet no one will hang his hand 
over the canoe into the water: we did not see 
any of these wretches, but at Boma Coxswain 
Deane observed one about sixteen feet long. 
Curls of smoke arose from the mountain-walls 
of the trough, showing that the bush was being 
burned ; and spired up from a grassy palm-dotted 
plain, between two rocky promontories on the left 
bank, the site of the Chacha or Wembo village : 
in a gap of the herbage stood half-finished canoes, 
and a man was bobbing with rod, line, and float. 
After an hours paddling we halted for breakfast 
under “ Alecto Rock,” a sheer bluff of reddish 
schist, 150 feet high ; here a white trident, inverted 
and placed ten feet above the water, showed signs* 
of H.M. Ship “ Alecto,” (late) Captain Hunt, 
whose boat passed up in 1855. The people call 
it Chimbongolo. The river is now three quarters 
of a mile wide, and the charming cove shows the 
brightest of sands and the densest of vegetation 
waving in the cool land-wind. 
Resuming our way at 9 p.m., we passed on the 
left “ Scylla Rocks,” then a wash, and beyond 
them four high and tree-clad heads off the right 
bank. Three are islets, the Zunga chya Gnombe 
—of the bull—formed by a narrow arm passing 
round them to the north : other natives called 
them Zunga chya Umbinda, but all seem to 
differ. These are the Gombac Islands of the 
