Inganda.
sibly I miglit secure a site at the confluence. If the
natives were too wild to permit of a settlement there,
then I might remain at Inganda, and wait the progress
of our influence.
Numerous inquiries about the distinctions between
the rivers meeting elicited the most confusing replies.
The Ikelemba was large ; but when they illustrated the
distance between bank and bank by an object near
them, the width seemed to vary between 50 and 100
yards. This was incredible. In my former book I had
stated it to be about 1000 yards wide. I had viewed it
personally. These were the same people who formerly
had called the river “ Ikelemba,” or “ Buruki.” A communicative
aborigine, hailing from Bungata, on the
right bank, drew a curve on the ground, and near the
middle of its convex side, at equal distances, joined
three lines at right angles to it, the lowest marked as
the channel coming from Bungata, the second channel
flowing from Lulungu, the highest proceeding from
Ikelemba Biver. The upper horn of the curve he
named Buruki or Mohindu. The lower horn of the
curve was called Inganda, where we were encamped.
This curve, then,' seemed to represent a river into
which three channels r a n ; but when I asked him to
describe tbe Mohindu river—Mohindu signifying black
—he contemptuously described it to be about twenty-
five yards wide!
Well, then, what great river was that which I saw
approaching the broad Congo, attracting my curious
gaze by its magnificent breadtb ; tea-dark in colour, as
strong a contrast to the flood that bore my canoes
along, as the sable faces of my crew differed from my
own ? I was becoming exasperated at my own obtuseness,
and I was impatient to settle the doubts which
agitated me.
Leaving the rest of the expedition a t Inganda, I
steamed up riven in the En Avant, in search of that
“ magnificent I and tea-coloured affluent. Within
seventy-five minutes' I had arrived near the very
spot whence I had viewed it six years previously, and
'I felt a glow of satisfaction in again looking upon
what I conceived to be tbe greatest tributary of the
Congo. I steamed across from the islands to the left
mainland, and half-way. across the river we entered
the tea-hued half of it. On proceeding fairly out of
what I considered to be the Congo proper into it, the
1000 yards I reduced to 800 yards, but it was deep,
with a three-knot current. Four hours above Inganda,
during which the “ magnificence ” of my affluent was
1 considerably diminished, owing to the fact that three
I channels had been seen coming from the Congo proper,
; the river took a decided turn south-east, and then I
[felt convinced that I was ascending a tributary. But
[I was not a whit elated at discovering that the Dark
[River had decreased to a, breadth of about 600 yards.
Buruki, which name the aborigines had repeated so
[often, was a large town situated on the left bank of
[ the Mohindu, about three miles above the confluence.
■The shores on either side were low, on the right hand
¡ too low to be inhabited, the river water penetrating
VOL. II. , D
Inganda