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Here I left the highway to Egypt and went down the Congo and my actual contact with the famous line ended. I could have gone on, however, and reached Cairo, with luck, in less than eight weeks. From Stanleyville you go to Mahagi, which is on the border between the Congo and Uganda. This is the only overland gap in the whole route.
Most of the "palavers" that I heard related to elopements. No matter how grievous was the offense of the male he invariably shifted the entire responsibility to the woman. He was merely emulating the ways of civilization. Between Stanleyville and Kinshassa we not only stopped every night according to custom, but halted at not less than a dozen settlements to take on or deliver cargo.
At Stanleyville the Minister of the Colonies had a great reception. Five hundred native troops looking very smart were drawn up in the plaza. On the platform of the station stood the Vice-Governor General and staff in spotless white uniforms, their breasts ablaze with decorations.
Adams, a solid structure of brick and European cement, and the Mess of the thirty or forty whites employed on the line who live here very well for mutton as well as goat can be purchased from the natives. The price of everything which has to be carried from Europe is very high at Stanleyville for the cost of transport is very great.
Stanleyville is the head of navigation on the Congo and like Paris, is built on two sides of the river. On the right bank is the place of the Vice-Governor General, scores of well stocked stores, and many desirable residences. The streets are long avenues of palm trees. The left bank is almost entirely given over to the railway terminals, yards, and repair shops.
It was necessary to make some calls in the town and a carriage at Boma was placed at my disposal similar to the one at Stanleyville, but travelling in it was more comfortable for the roads are better in the capital. It was very hot and the mosquitoes were terribly hostile, but otherwise my visit was very pleasant and agreeable.
The native, however, knows nothing about the law of demand and supply and he holds out for the boom price. The outcome is that hundreds of tons of ivory are piled up in the villages and no power on earth can convince the savage that there is such a thing as the ebb and flow of price. Such is commercial life in the jungle. Northeast of Stanleyville lie the most important gold mines in the Colony.
The Congo is the first of the Central African countries to dedicate aviation to commercial uses and this precedent is likely to be extensively followed. Fifteen hydroplanes have been ordered for the Congo River service which will eventually be extended to Stanleyville. Only those who have endured the agony of slow transport in the Congo can realize the blessing that air travel will confer.
I was not surprised to find that the proprietor was a Portuguese who had made a small fortune trimming the Samson locks of the scores of agents who stream into the little town every week. He is the only barber in the place and there is no competition this side of Stanleyville, more than a thousand miles away.
As the navigation of the river is difficult near Stanleyville, a pilot takes all the boats down the first day's journey and returns in the next vessel ascending.