among people 300 miles above Stanley Pool excited
wonder for some hours, until they told us that many of
their people had seen Leopoldville and Kintamo, and
had seen our big house and wagons and boats in the'
port.
Our reception at Usindi was so warm and friendly
that we passed a very agreeable time there until noon
of the 5th. Iuka, the chief, would have given me half
of his village had we asked for it—anything, did we
hut agree to stop and build with them. They were a-
most polite people, I observed, being all unanimous to
abstain from giving the least offence or alarm, and
keeping back every warlike weapon from coming
into view. I may say this was the first spot out of
civilisation that I saw any such polite delicacy. Confident
in their own strength, I presume, they thought
it was not necessary to have recourse to the barbarous
art of terrorising.
Seventy minutes above Usindi we entered a deep
channel 300 yards wide, between a reedy island, as we
imagined it to be, and a still larger settlement, or
cluster of towns, than the one we had just left. The
shore along its entire length was lined with hundreds
of bronze-bodied people, but not one voice was heard
calling out to us. This we took to be an omen of distrust,
and affected to pass on ; but we had not proceeded
more than a few miles up the channel before we were
aware we were pursued. We halted and permitted the
canoemen to approach. They bore to us, they said, an
invitation to visit Mangombo, chief of Irebu.
Of course we knew it was the populous district of 1883. 'June 6.
Irebu, the home of the champion traders on the Upper Irebu.
Congo, rivalled only in numbers and enterprise by
Ubangi on the right bank. Irebu traders, descending
in canoes, overwhelmed the aborigines of Lukolela, as
the latter themselves had admitted. They had mastered
populous Ngombe, awed Nkuku, Butunu and Usindi,
and we had heard vague rumours that they had taught
the fierce Bangala to treat their traders with respect.
It was in fact a Venice of the Congo, seated in the
pride of its great numbers between the dark waters of
the Lukanga and the deep brown channels of the
parent stream.
There were hundreds of people. standing eagerly
expectant of, the arrival of the flotilla in the covelet
of Upper Irebu, men, women and children, from the
very old and grey-headed to the young naked copperskinned
gamin. Though so numerous, an instinctive
hush governed the crowd into deep silence as the
engines stopped and the boats glided to their berths
along the shore. Not until the crew leaped over the
gunwales with the anchors, and the chains ceased
running through the brazen chocks, was the silence
broken, and then a muffled murmur of applause was
heard as each remarked to the other his admiration of
the vessels.
Mangombo, with a curious long staff a fathom and a
half in length, having a small spade of brass at one
\ end, much resembling a baker’s cake-spade, stood in
front. He was a man probably sixty years old, but