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Updated: May 28, 2025
I reach Ibembo on the 30th and am met by Lieutenant Francois, the Chef du Poste. It is a large station with a big mess for many travellers are continually passing through. On this date three hundred and fifty soldiers with their officers were marching through with the object of occupying Enguetra and its district until the Sultan becomes a little more reasonable.
Here we enter a canoe and are rapidly paddled down the stream which is only about twenty yards wide, until we reach a clearing in the forest in which the Post of Enguetra is being built by Lieutenant Gaspard. In a few weeks he has constructed a fine brick house of two storeys with a large verandah looking down a natural avenue to the river.
I leave Enguetra on the 18th in a most comfortable canoe with an awning so high that it is possible to stand upright, a great luxury in canoe travelling. The Likati flows swiftly through dense forests and we glide down the rapids very quickly and comfortably.
The skin was thus spoilt which was a great pity as it measured more than ten feet in length. As it was not easy to procure paddlers at Enguetra I decided to send on one of the boys Mavunga with some of the heavy baggage on November 17th and to follow him the next day. He was very nervous at the idea of travelling alone and wished to borrow a revolver, but this of course I refused.
In another hour we reach the string of villages constituting the territory of the Sultan of Enguetra who like the Sultan of Djabir is not a particularly good chief. His people, however, receive the porters kindly and give them bananas. Then on again under a very fierce sun until the north bank of the Likati river is reached.
There is, however, I hear a patent lock which can be fixed over the cork and is easily fastened to the bottle. This is worth remembering. One day Chikaia slated that the Sultan of Enguetra intended to attack the Post that night and if he had done so it might have fared badly with us for we were only two white men with perhaps fifteen or twenty soldiers.
However there are plenty of small beasts and birds so the day was not altogether wasted. The Congo is undoubtedly the land of exaggerations. Everything here is bigger or smaller than any where else. If the elephants are the largest in the world the insects are the smallest and Enguetra is especially favoured by their attendance. Millions of little beasts fall on one all day long.
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