Mpangu.
shock of the descent from such a height. Another rain,
and the powdered débris will be swept into the next
runnel, thence into the more impetuous stream next to
it, and thence into the Congo, to give a little browner
colour to the already brown water of the great river.
This crevasse will extend deeper into the heart of the
narrow plateau ridge on which I stand ; it will yawn
wider and wider with each year’s rains ; it will then
exchange the perpendicular for a slope, and the crevasse
will become a gully, afterwards a wide ravine, and
finally a valley. In a heavy rainstorm it will collect
water enough to plough deeper down, until the rock
base of this great bed of clay and sand is revealed.
In such a manner, I understand, has the geological
history of this section been disclosed, at least, if I read
it in the light of facts obtained by our overland journey.
But if I descend into the bottom of the Congo canon,
and look up to the precipitous walls of solid rock that
frequently are seen rising 200 and 300 feet (as in the
Pocock basin, and all along that tortuous narrow
channel between Mpakambendi and Mbelo), the ages
which have elapsed since the plateau above was. fractured,
carries a calculation back through such an, immeasurable
time that one would fain relegate the incomputable
problem to those savants who find themselves
at home among decimals and recondite conjectures.
I can see watermarks as high as 100 feet above
the present water-surface ; and yet the highest river
rise cannot exceed twenty feet above its present level !
How many years would be required to wear away
»
rock of such a durable nature eighty feet down ? would 1884.
March,
be a first question. There is also lava still to be found Mpangu.
at low water about Kalulu Falls. Whence has it come ?
There have been rock slides, as well as earth falls,
and at the Inkissi Falls one may see a complete islet
which has dropped down, or rather sunk, an intact
mass of rock and earth, a clear 400 feet!
I t is from amid such scenes as this, between Mpangu
and Manyanga, that we view the lofty Mount B e ri;
in the distance is Sphynx Bock, a little to the east of
it and on the range of a plain grooved deeply by
the small tributaries of the Mpioga river, which
empties into the Congo below our station of South
Manyanga.
It would be difficult to conceive of a land so fertile
as this, and yet presenting such an ungrateful aspect.
The valleys are rich, but there is so much slope of red,
hard, sterile clay visible everywhere that we are chilled
to the heart, as though we were looking at so many
blank walls, which hid a fair prospect of luxuriant
gardens.
We stopped long enough at South Manyanga to
enable me to cross over to North Manyanga and measure
the amount of work performed during my absence at
that station since its foundation in 1881. I found it in
a “ higgledy-piggledy ” state, without any order or
design, which compelled me to order the new chief to
pull it all down and rebuild it anew. I t was in such
a backward condition that any station a month old on
the Upper Congo was more advanced. And yet this
p 2