1883. men might be drawn from these efforts of untutored
boLT blacks to get through their tasks !
Meantime, at dusk, each steamer’s crew of white
officers and passengers will he found around their
dinner-tables on deck or on the bank, if the camp
has permitted it ; the lamplight tinging their faces-
with a rosier hue than the sallow complexion which
the sun has bestowed on them.
Of food there is abundance, but not much variety.
I t may comprise soup of beans or vegetables, followed,
by toasted chikwanga (cassava-bread), fried or stewed
fowl, a roast fowl, or a roast leg of goat meat, a dish
of desiccated potatoes, and, if we have been fortunate-
in our purchases, some sweet potatoes,, or yams, roast
bananas, boiled beans, rice and curry, or rices with
honey, or rice and milk, finishing with tea or coffee, or
palm-wine. _
I t is insipid food for breakfast and dinner throug -
out a term of three years. A few months of this diet
makes the European sigh for his petit verre, Astrachan
caviar, mock-turtle, salmon—with sauce Hollandaise-
_ filet de boeuf, with perhaps a pastete and poularde
mit compÔte und salat. For if a German, however can
he live without his dear compote ? Then, how nice,.
he thinks, would fruit, cheese, and dessert be on the
Congo. How glorious a view of Congo life one cou
take when exhilarated by half a pint of champagne.
I think, indeed, that the eternal “ fowl ” of the Congo,
and the unvarying slices of chikwanga, with which
our young officers are fed, deserves three-fourths of
the blame now lavished on “ murderous Africa.” It
is only a grand moral manhood like Livingstone’s
that rises above these petty vanities of a continental
stomach. Think of his thirty-two years’ life in Africa
and of the unsophisticated mannikins who to-day are
digging their eyes out with weeping at the memories
of a European restaurant before they have been
scarcely three months o u t!
There is not much to converse about on the ConeO-o
after our stomachs are full of the heavy chikwanga,
and as we all know that—
"The time of life.is short;
To spend 'that little basely were too long.”
We retire early to spend it well in sleeping, that we
may be better fitted for the next day’s weary voyaging
up the great African river.
Ungende was our first night’s camp above Bolobo.
The By-yanzi were very friendly at first, but at sunset
their fears made them hostile, and they were not
quieted until all our people were ordered to make
their reedy couches near the steamers.
The next day we travelled up by very pleasant hills.
We passed villages, banana-groves, palmy groups, and
deep green forest in agreeable alternations. These are
the Levy Hills, and end .at the magnificent and airy red
bluffs of Iyumbi. The people looked out upon us in
stupid wonder from under the shade of their bananas,
■seemingly saying, “ What curious phase of existence
■ have we entered upon now? Verily, an epoch has
Bolobo.