Wanderings in Three Continents

by Sir Richard Francis Burton

other places had we not had recourse to our friends in need, the revolvers.

At the creek one man jumped on shore and we pushed off again; but a few yards down we were hailed by a Missolongi canoe, the river-pirates of this part of the Congo. This third time our canoemen stopped; and we were obliged to face them with cocked revolvers and compel them to go on. Down we glided, assisted more by the current than by our men. Another creek, and the canoemen requested to stop again to eat, which request was positively refused.

The river had been hitherto very calm, but at two o’clock the sea-breeze began to blow hard; the tide was also slightly against us, and this caused a swell in the river which wetted nearly all our things. I was surveying at the time, and, fearing that the instruments might get a soaking with salt water, I ordered the canoemen to put back and return to Point Banana by means of a creek on the right of the river. This appeared to the canoemen to be awfully hard work, although they had only to pull back for about a quarter of a mile. The Congoes are remarkable for their uselessness: they excel in eating, drinking, sleeping, and talking, in a word, in satisfying their sensual comforts, and what little sense they have is used for the purpose of annoying those with whom they come in contact. More than five times they were asked to make sail, and then gave a few strokes with their paddles, and stopped and chatted again, put

the canoe broadside on to the billows, let her drift back, and again gave a few more strokes.

In this way nearly an hour passed away, and we never reached the end of the quarter-mile. They began to complain that the way by the creek was too far, whilst just a short time before that they told us the creek was the nearest. They now declared that they could proceed no farther, and pulled the canoe in shore. Seeing that the whole bevy of them, from the captain to the small boy, were all drunk from drinking some rum they had brought with them, we could do nothing but submit to this state of things, anything being preferable to trusting the canoe with a lot of drunken hands, and getting ourselves and gear saturated with salt water.

The crew were permitted to land. They lighted a fire, cooked, ate, drank, quarrelled, and went to sleep. The padron, or captain, took possession of the rum, and drank himself to sleep also; and when the wind abated a little and the water became calmer, we awakened the captain with difficulty, and he with greater difficulty his crew; but the tide had gone down, and the canoe was high and dry on the bank. All efforts to launch her into the water proved unavailing, especially as the rum was still hard at work, and what little sense the Congoes had was perfectly misapplied. In consequence we had to wait until the tide again served, which did not take place till two o’clock the following morning, when we tried again to start our hands, and with great

delay and noise managed to reach Point Banana at 4.15 a.m.

At six o’clock all our things were landed and comfortably housed within Monsieur Parrat’s factory. Thank God! we were now at a considerable distance from Yellalla and the triumvirate and avaricioua triple ministers of the Banza Nculu, far away from the Banza Vivi and its king, far away from the quarrelsome, covetous, gin-drinking, noisy, and licentious old Gidi Mavonga, far away from that senseless nincompoop the Prince Sudikil, and—​praise be to Allah!—​within hail of Her Majesty’s ship Griffon.

[7] This MS. consisted mainly of notes roughly jotted down by Burton in a memorandum book. I have thought it best to publish them as they stood, with no alterations except those necessary to make the essay coherent and legible.—​W. H. W.