70 THE CONGO.
size and importance, perhaps between 300 and 400
yards wide. The Balui are a very daring people from
all accounts, and their numerous piratical exploits have
won for them great notoriety in that section of the
Congo lying between Ngombe and Ikengo.
On the 29th of September the steam flotilla arrived
off Equator Station, from which we had been absent
one hundred days.
A NAIIVB OF IBOKO.
No better illustration could he desired to exhibit the
effect of industry inspired by good-will and zeal than
Equator Station, as it was seen by us after this comparatively
short absence. We had left it a jungle of
worthless scrub; we returned to find an Equatorial
hotel — commodious, comfortable, rain-proof, bullet-1
proof, burglar-proof, and almost fire-proof. In thel
domestic adornments and fittings, one might have
imagined a lady had lent her skilful taste in the
arrangement. The two young army lieutenants, after
building the solid clay-house, had turned their attention
