He recalled to their minds the long weary marches, the terrible dank forests of Urega, how easy it would be to sit in canoes, and paddle down this great river, which must flow into the sea. They agreed, and met the first serious impediment to navigation at the Equator, where a series of seven cataracts in forty miles caused them to transport their canoes overland round these obstacles.
Clear of these Stanley Falls they had an uninterrupted course for 1,060 miles, the river widening out in some places to as much as twenty-five miles in breadth, studded with low sandy tree-covered islands. As he neared the end of this grand reach of waterway, hills appeared, the river narrowed, and the banks grew steeper until they towered a thousand feet above him. The river widened out once more into a pool some seventy miles in circumference, which is now named Stanley Pool, at the western end of which the explorer heard the thunder of the Ntamu Cataracts. From this point his difficulties were to be of a different nature. Along the 1,000 miles of clear waterway which he had just passed, he had been exposed to the constant attacks of wild, fierce savages, now he had to struggle with a wilder, fiercer river. The next one hundred miles occupied four months. Dragging his canoes overland, past the Ntamu Cataracts, he took once more to the water, only to find another cataract a few miles lower down. This was his constant experience, while the porterage past these obstacles often involved the conveyance of his heavy canoes, stores, etc., 700 and 1,000 feet up the steep banks of the river, four or five miles overland, and down again into the deep gorge. Stores were running short, food was scarce, canoes were lost in the rapids, some of his men were drowned, including Frank Pocock, his only surviving white companion. Privations, sickness, and murderous natives had thinned his ranks, but he struggled on. Clearing the Ntombo Mataka Falls, he found a reach of ninety miles of very bad, but navigable water, and at the end of which were the great Isangila Falls. There, learning that he was within a few days’ journey of factories and white men, he left the river, and his weary company toiled over the steep quartz hills and reached Mboma in August, 1877, in an almost starving condition. A year of drought and great scarcity of food had added much to his difficulties. However, the journey was accomplished, the Congo River had been traced, the highway into the heart of Africa had been explored. Taking his people down the last quiet sixty miles of the river, he arranged for their return to Zanzibar, via the Cape of Good Hope. Having seen them safe home again, and rewarded their devotion and toil, he reached England to announce his great discovery.
CHAPTER II.
The Physical Features of the Congo.
Roughly we may describe the Basin of the Congo as extending from the 5th degree of North, to the 12th degree of South, latitude, and from the hills skirting the coast of the Atlantic Ocean to 31st or 32nd degree of East longitude.
Along what is known as the South-West Coast of Africa, from the Gulf of Biafra southwards, stretches a ridge of hill country. It commences about fifty to seventy miles inland, and is about 300 miles in width. In some parts it attains an elevation of 5,000 or more feet, but the general altitude near the Congo is from 2,000 to 2,500 above the level of the sea. It is really a belt or elevated plateau; rich soil is to be found on the summits of the ‘hills,’ but the whole has been torn and worn by the rains; little streams have in time cut out deep gorges, the sides of which are being further eroded, until what was once a rolling table-land appears as a chaos of hills; only from a few heights can one gain a fair idea of the nature of the country.
This plateau belt forms the western watershed of the Congo River, and on its seaward slopes gives rise to many unimportant streams, of which the Cameroons, Gaboon, Ogowai, Kwilu, Chiloango, Mbidiji, (Ambrize), Loje, and Kwanza are the principal. The Ogowai is the most important, and has been explored by M. de Brazza for the French Government, which has now annexed its entire basin. It is navigable for some 150 miles for vessels of light draught; but beyond its course is much impeded by cataracts.
This water-torn plateau country, with its little useless rivers, has presented a formidable obstacle to exploration, and has served to throw all interior water into the Congo. To the north of the Great Basin stretches the high lands of the unknown countries which form also the watershed of the Shari and the Nile. Eastward stretches the hill country on the west of the Victoria and Albert Nyanza, and on the east of Tanganika, while to the south is the watershed of the Zambesi.
This great circle of hills probably enclosed at one time an immense fresh-water lake, of an area of a million and a half square miles, which at length, overflowing at its weakest point, formed the outlet which we to-day call the Congo River. The immense flood thus released tore out the deep gorge, which is now 1,000 and 1,500 feet below the main level. There are signs in some parts of changes in its course, one notably in the Bundi valley, thirty-five miles from Vivi, which was at one time undoubtedly a channel of the Congo; there are other valleys also presenting that appearance, the levels, entrances, and exits of which would lead one to conclude that such had been the case.
If a transverse section were taken about the middle of the cataract region, there would be first an ascent from the river, almost perpendicular, of from 300 to 500 feet in about one-third of a mile, then a much steadier rise of some 500 to 700 feet in two miles, and then a rise of another 500 to 700 feet in eight miles, with a further steady rise for five miles, so that the actual valley in the cataract region might be estimated roughly at from twenty to thirty miles in breadth. The river itself varies from 300 yards to one-and-a-half or two miles wide at mid-flood; while the difference between the highest water of the rainy season and the lowest in the dry season, varies from forty feet in the worst parts to about three feet on the lower river.