Bolobo during our palavers relating to the murder of
two of our garrison by Gfatula. We requested to
know what assistance be wished. After consultation
with bis fellows, he decided to return to Bolobo with bis
wife and six companions. We supplied the others with
food and native arms, which we had purchased from
the Bakuti, and they resolved to make their way to
Lukolela by land. We transported them to the mainland,
and then proceeded on our journey to Bolobo,
which we reached at nine o’clock at night.
The next day we rendered Miyongo and his wife
speechless with gratitude by a present of forty days
rations, when, according to native custom, they had
become our property. Departing from Bolobo soon
afterwards, we arrived at Mswata station after thirteen
hours’ steaming.
During my absence to the equator, Lieutenant
Janssen had received a visitor, in the person of the
Abbé Guyot, a Boman Catholic missionary serving
under the orders of the Algerian Cardinal. The -Abbé
had come up the Congo highly recommended to the
officers of the Association, with the view of establishing
a mission. Leopoldville being already blessed
with the Protestant missions, the Abbé thought it
convenient to seek a virgin field. Upon suggesting
the Kwa, in the. neighbourhood of the confluence, he
expressed himself pleased with the locality, upon
which I requested Lieutenant Janssen to proceed up
to fhe Kwa, and establish himself on the left bank
of the confluence, and to assist the Abbé Guyot
I in the founding of his mission on the right bank
■ of the affluent opposite.
On the 3rd of July, with the wind blowing strongly
■ against us, we left Mswata for Leopoldville. Just
■ above the Wampoko river, on the right bank, we saw
■ a lion crouched on the sand, watching with curious
■ gaze the descending flotilla.; We tried a shot at it and
I missed i t ; and, led by curiosity, we landed at the place
I to discover that a fierce struggle had occurred shortly
I before, leaving traces of some heavy body having been
¡dragged over the beach. The evidences were as legible
las a highway, and pointed us to a dead buffalo still
¡warm fifty paces from the river’s edge, where it had
I been struck helpless while drinking. Good fresh beef
twas too rare on the Upper Congo to be rejected, and all
■ hands that day banqueted on the steaks and roast hump
■furnished by the forest king.
Kimpoko station, reached the next day at 10 a .m .,
I|was superintended by Mons. Amelot. The place
I ¡evidently was about to be known as one of our unlucky
■stations. This was the fourth chief who had been
■placed in command, and yet the chief’s residence had
■not been completed, and, by the very slow progress
■which had been made, probably the columns would
■need renewing before it would be fit for living in.
1 After fifty-seven days’ absence we again saw Leopold-
Rdlle, with substantial proofs everywhere visible of
H p competency of Lieutenant Yalcke as chief. A
B ^ g e house, having nine commodious rooms for the
B p g in g of Europeans, had been put up’; a small station
E 2
Mswata.