Volume Ii Part 5 (1/2)
Chapter IX.
Up the Congo to Banza Nokki.
For a wonder the canoes came in time, and, despite their mat- sails, we could not complain of them. There were twelve paddlers two for the stem, and two for the stern of each craft, under a couple of interpreters, Jotakwa.s.si and Nchama-Chamvu, who were habited in European frock-coats of broadcloth, and in native terminations mostly ”buff.” Our excellent host bade us a kindly adieu, with many auguries of success--during the last night the frogs had made a noise in the house. Briefly, we set out on September 6th.
In the forty-five miles between Boma, where we enter the true trough of the Congo, and the landing-place of Banza Nokki below the cataracts, there are half-a-dozen reaches, the shortest of three, the longest of fifteen miles. They are not straight, as upon the chart; the windings of the bed exclude direct vision, and the succession of points and bays suggest, like parts of the Rhine, a series of mountain-tarns. The banks show the high-water level in a low shelf, a ribbon of green, backed by high rolling hills, rounded and stony, with gra.s.s dry at this season; the formation is primitive, and the material of the lower bed has been held to ”prove the probability that the mountains of Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, and other adjacent parts of South America, were primevally connected with the opposite chains, that traverse the plains of Congo and Loango.” In parts the rocks fall bluff into the river, and here the current rushes past like a mill-race without a shadow of backwater. The heights are intersected by gullies and ravines, of which I counted sixty-nine on the right and fifty-four on the left bank; many of them are well wooded, and others are fronted by plains of the reeds and flags, which manufacture floating islands, cast loose, like those of the Niger, about the end of July by the ”Malka” rains. About a dozen contained running water: Captain Tuckey did not see one that would turn a mill in August and September; but in November and December all these fiumaras will discharge torrents.
The breadth of the entroughed bed varies from 700 yards to two miles where it most dispreads itself. The current increases from the normal three to five knots in rare places; the surface loses the gla.s.siness of the lower section, and at once shows the boiling and swirling which will be noticed near the cataracts.
The sh.o.r.es are often foul, but the midway is mostly clear, and, where sunken rocks are, they are shown by whirlpools. The flow of the tide, or rather the damming up of the lower waters between Porto da Lenha and the mouth, causes a daily rise, which we found to measure about a foot; thus it a.s.sists in forming a treble current, the rapid down-flow in the Thalweg being subtended by a strong backwater on either side carrying a considerable portion in a retrograde direction, and showing a sensible reflux; this will continue as far as the rapids. In the Amazonas the tides are felt a hundred leagues from the mouth; and, whilst the stream moves seawards, the level of the water rises, proving an evident under-current. Mr. Bates has detected the influence of oceanic tides at a point on the Tapajos, 530 miles distant from its mouth, such is the amazing flatness of the country's profile: here we find the reverse.
The riverine trough acts as wind-conductor to a strong and even violent sea-breeze; on the lower section it begins as a ground- current--if the ”bull” be allowed--a thin horizontal stratum near the water, it gradually curves and slides upwards as it meets the mountain flanks, forming an inverted arch, and extending some 2,000 to 3,000 feet above the summits. At this season it is a late riser, often appearing about 3 P.M., and sometimes its strength is not exhausted before midnight. The brown water, gra.s.s-sheeted at the sides, conceals the bright yellow sand of the bed; when placed in a tumbler it looks clear and colourless, and the taste is perfectly sweet--brackishness does not extend far above Porto da Lenha. Yet at Boma the residents prefer a spring near the factories, and attribute dysentery to the use of river-water. According to Mr. George Maxwell, the supply of the lower bed has the quality of rotting cables, and the same peculiarity was attributed to the Tanganyika.
Of late years no s.h.i.+p has ventured above Boma, and boats have ascended with some difficulty, owing to the ”buffing stream.” Yet there is no reason why the waters should not be navigated, as proposed in 1816, by small steamers of good power, and the strong sea-breeze would greatly facilitate the pa.s.sage. In older and more enterprising days merchant-schooners were run high up the Zaire. The master of a vessel stated to Tuckey that he ”had been several voyages up to the distance of 140 miles from the mouth”
without finding any difficulty.
Our course pa.s.sed by Banza Chisalla where, as we had paid double, there was a vain attempt to make us pay treble. Travelling up the south-eastern reach, we pa.s.sed a triangular insulated rock off the southern bank, and then the ”diabolitos” outlying Point Kilu, opposite Banza Vinda on the other side. A second reach winding to the north-east showed on the right Makula (Annan) River, and a little further Munga-Mungwa (Woodhouslee); between them is the terminus of the So Salvador road. On the northern bank where the hills now become rounded mountains, 1,500 feet above the stream, perches Chinimi the village of Manbuku Prata, who expects canoes here to await his orders; and who was sorely offended because I pa.s.sed down without landing. The next feature of the chart, Matadi ”Memcandi,” is a rocky point, not an island. Turning a projection, Point Makula (Clough Corner), we entered No. 3, elbow bending southeast; on its concave northern side appeared the settlement Vinda la Nzadi. This is the Vinda le Zally of Tuckey; on the chart Veinde len Zally, and according to others Vinda de Nzadi, or village of the Zaire River. It is probably the ”Benda”
of the Introduction (p. x.x.xiv.); and as b and v sound alike in Fiote, Cabinda, Cabenda or Kabendah is evidently Ca-vinda--great village.
Our terminus that day was the usual resting-place of travellers, ”Mfumba” behind Nk.u.mungu (Point) Kaziwa, a ma.s.s of granitoid slabs, with a single tree for landmark. Opposite us was Sandi ya Nzondo, which others call Sanga ya Ngondo; in the chart this one- tree island is written ”Catlo Zonda,” it is the first of two similar formations. Oscar Rock, its western (down stream) neighbour, had shared the fate of ”Soonga lem Paccula,” (Zunga chya Makula?) a stone placed in the map north-east of the Makula or Annan debouchure; both were invisible, denoted only by swirls in the water. We had taken seven hours to cover what we easily ran down in two, and we slept comfortably with groan of rock and roar of stream for lullaby.
September 7.--Our course now lay uninterruptedly along the left bank, where the scenery became yet more Rhine-like, in natural basins, reaches on the chart: here and there rugged uprocks pa.s.sably simulated ruined castles. The dwarf bays of yellow sand were girt by a goodly vegetation, the palm and the calabash only telling us that we were in Africa.
Our men pointed to the work of a Nguvu or hippopotamus, which they say sometimes attacks canoes; they believe with Tuckey that the river-horses cause irregularity of soundings by a.s.sembling and trampling deep holes in the bed; but the Ngadi is a proof that they do not, as M. du Chaillu supposes, exclusively affect streams with shoals and shallows. The jacare (crocodile) is known especially to avoid the points where the current 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 c.o.xswain 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 gra.s.sy 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 hour's 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. s.h.i.+p ”Alecto,” (late) Captain Hunt, whose boat pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sing round them to the north: other natives called them Zunga chya Umbinda, but all seem to differ. These are the Gombac Islands of the chart, Hall Island being the easternmost, and the northern pa.s.sage between the three horns and the main is called by us ”Gombac Creek.” Half an hour beyond was a ma.s.s of villages, in a large, gra.s.sy low-land of the left bank, girt by mountains higher than those down stream. Some outlying huts were called by the interpreters Suko Nkongo, and formed the ”beach town” of large interior settlements, Suko do Wembo and Mbinda. Others said Lasugu or Sugo Nkongo, the Sooka Congo of the charts: others again for ”Mbinda” proposed ”Mpeso Birimba.” This is probably the place where according to the mail of November, ?73, diamonds were found, and having been submitted to ”Dr. Basham (Dr. Bastian before mentioned), Director of the Museum of Berlin,” were p.r.o.nounced to be of very fine water. It is possible that the sandstone may afford precious stones like the itacolumite of the Brazil (”Highlands of the Brazil,” i.
380), but the whole affair proved a hoax. In mid-stream rose No.
2, ”One-Tree Island,” Zunga chya Nlemba or s.h.i.+ka chya Nzondo; in Tuckey it is called Boola Beca or Blemba (the husband) Rock; the old ficus dying at the head, was based upon a pedestal which appeared groin-shaped from the east. Here the mirage was very distinct, and the canoes seemed to fly, not to swim--
”As when far out of sea a fleet descried, Hangs in the clouds.”
The northern bank shows a stony projection called by Maxwell ”Fiddler's Elbow;” it leads to the fourth reach, the second of the north-eastern series; and the breadth of the stream, once more a mountain lake, cannot be less than two miles.
I foresaw trouble in pa.s.sing these settlements. Presently a snake-like war canoe with hawser-holes like eyes, crept out from the southern sh.o.r.e; a second fully manned lay in reserve, lurking along the land, and armed men crowned the rocks jutting into the stream. We were accosted by the first craft, in which upon the central place of honour sat Mpeso Birimba, a petty chief of Suko Nkongo; a pert rascal of the French factory, habited in a red cap, a green velvet waistcoat, and a hammock-shaped tippet of pine-apple fibre; his sword was a short Sollingen blade. The visit had the sole object of mulcting me in rum and cloth, and my only wish was naturally to expend as little as possible in mere preliminaries. The name of Manbuku Prata was duly thrown at him with but little effect: these demands are never resisted by the slave-dealers. After much noise and cries of ”Mwendi” (miser, skin-flint) on the part of the myrmidons, I was allowed to proceed, having given up a cloth twenty-four yards long, and I felt really grateful to the ”trade” which had improved off all the other riverine settlements. Beyond this point we saw nothing but their distant smokes.
Before the second north-eastern reach, the interpreters exclaimed ”Yellala falla”--”the cataract is speaking,” and we could distinctly hear the cheering roar. The stream now a.s.sumed the aspect of Niagara below the Falls, and the circular eddies boiling up from below, and showing distinct convexity, suggested the dangerous ”wells” of the northern seas. Pa.s.sing the ”Three Weird Sisters,” unimportant rocks off, the right bank, we entered upon the remarkably long stretch, extending upwards of five miles, and, from its predominating growth, we proposed to call it ”Palmyra Reach.” The immediate river banks were clad with sedge, and the broad leaves of the nymphaea, a plant like the calamus of Asia, but here used only as a toothpick, began to oust the rushy and flaggy growth of the lower bed. The pink b.a.l.l.s of the spinous mimosa, and bright flowers, especially the convolvulus and ipomaea, illuminated the dull green. The gra.s.sy land at the foot of the mountains was a mere edging, faced by outlying rocks, and we were shown the site of a village long ago destroyed.
The Nteba, or palmyra n.o.bilis, mixed here and there with a glorious tamarind, bombax or calabash, forms a thin forest along the reach, and rarely appears upon the upper hills, where we should expect it. The people use both fruit and wine, preferring, however, the liquor of the Ebah (oil palm-tree), and the autumnal fires can hardly affect so st.u.r.dy a growth. The other trees are the mfuma, cotton-tree or bombax (Pentandria truncospinoso, Smith), much valued as a canoe: Merolla uses Mafuma, a plural form, and speaks of its ”wonderful fine wool.” The wild figs show glorious stature, a truly n.o.ble growth, whose parents were sun and water.
The birds were lank black clivers (Plotus), exceedingly wild; the African roller (Coracias); halcyons of several species, especially a white and black kingfisher, nimble and comely; many swallows, horn-bills, and wild pigeons which made the bush resound; ardeine birds, especially a heron, like the large Indian ”kullum;” kites, crows, ”whip-poor-wills,” and a fine haliaetus, which flies high and settles upon the loftiest branches. One of these eagles was shot, after a gorge of the electric fish here common; its coat was black and white, and the eyes yellow, with dark pupils. Various lizards ran over the rocks; and we failed to secure a water-snake, the only specimen seen on the whole trip.
About noon we struggled past Point Masalla, our ”Diamond Rock,” a reef ending in a triangular block, towering abruptly, and showing by drift-wood a flood-line now twelve feet high. There are several of these ”bench-marks;” and the people declare that after every few years an unusual freshet takes place. Here the current impinges directly upon the rocks, making a strong eddy. ”They die each time,” said the interpreters, as the canoemen, with loud shouts of ”Vai ou nao Vai? Vai sempre! Vai direito, ya mondele!”
and ”Arister,” a mariner's word, after failing to force the way, tumbled overboard, with a hawser of lliana to act as tow-line.
”Vai direito,” according to Father Ciprani, also applies to a ”wonderful bird, whose song consists in these plain words;” and ”Mondele” is synonymous with the Utangani of the Gaboon and the East African Muzungu, a white man.