CHAPTER VII.
Final warnings against theft— Humiliating a protectionist_
Kindly tribes—Five of the Expedition abandoned to slavery
for theft—Safeni goes mad from joy—Goaded to crime
—Ali Kiboga’s adventures— The cataract of Isangila—Only
five marches from white faces ! — Staunch to the death_
Rum— My appeal to Embomma— The forlorn hope—The
“ powerful man” insults us—Struggling on—“We are saved,
thank God!” — “ Enough now; fall to”—My letter of thanks
— Approaching civilization — Amongst whites—Boma—The
Atlantic Ocean.
(July 4—August i2, 1877.)
S t r o n g l y impressed with thè knowledge that
nothing but a persevering, persistent, even impetuous
advance towards the sea could now
save us from the pangs of famine, we only halted
two days at Kilanga. Therefore on the 6th
July the goods were transported to a distance
of two miles to Kinzoré, beyond the district
Suki, or “Hair.” Having ascertained that no
rapids of a dangerous nature, during the quick
recession of the flood, troubled the narrow and
tortuous gap, Uledi was directed to lead the
canoes past Kinzoré and. camp to Mpakambendi,
which enabled us to move forward next morning
to joiq them without delay or accident.
r July 7. l 87 7 - .l ANOTHER PHASE OF THE RIVER. 17 7
[Mpakambendi. J
Mpakambendi terminates the narrow, walled
chasm which we had followed since leaving the
Kalulu Falls, and in which we had spent 117
¿ayS__ that is, from 29th March to 6th July.
Xhe distance from Mpakambendi to Ntamo along
the course of the river is only 95 geographical
miles, and we were 131 days effecting this journey!
At Mpakambendi the defile through which
the river rushes opens to a greater width, and
the mountains slope away from it with a more
rounded contour, and only at intervals do they
drop down abrupt in cliffs. Consequently the
river expands, and being less tortured by boul-
dery projections and cliffy narrows, assumes
somewhat of a milder aspect. This is due to
the change in the character of the rocks. Above,
we had horizontally stratified gneiss and sandstone
with an irregular coping of granite masses,
and here and there a protrusion of the darker
trappean rocks. Below Mpakambendi, the river
is disturbed by many protruded ledges of the
softer greenish shales, which have been so
pounded and battered by the river that we have
merely rapids without whirlpools and leaping
waves to interrupt our descent. Every other
mile or so of the river shows symptoms of interruption,
and its surface is here marked by thin
lines of low waves, and there by foamy stretches.
From Mpakambendi to the rounded mount-
shoulder on which Nsenga is situate stretches
THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT. VOL. IV.