Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 6, 2025
The Congo River seemed like an old friend as we steamed up toward Kwamouth. As soon as we turned into the Kasai I found that conditions were different than on the main river. There was an abundance of fuel, both for man and boat. The daily goat steak of the Congo was relieved by duck and fish.
I want her to go home in this boat or in some other, as I believe Boma most unhealthy and I know it to be most uncomfortable. She would have to go to a hotel which is very hot and rough, although it is clean and well run. I am undecided whether to go up the river for ten days, to where it crosses the equator, or to leave the upper Congo and go up the Kasai river.
Near by is a botanical garden maintained by the Colonial Government and which contains specimens of all the flora of Central Africa. At Coquilhatville I saw the first horse since I left Rhodesia and it was a distinct event. Except in the Kasai region it is impossible to maintain live stock in the Congo. The tsetse fly is the devastating agency.
I did not observe the course in which the water flowed while crossing; but, having noticed before that the Lotembwa on the other side of the Lake Dilolo flowed in a southerly direction, I supposed that this was simply a prolongation of the same river beyond Dilolo, and that it rose in this large marsh, which we had not seen in our progress to the N.W. But when we came to the Southern Lotembwa, we were informed by Shakatwala that the river we had crossed flowed in an opposite direction not into Dilolo, but into the Kasai.
Kawawa was not to be balked of his supposed rights by the unceremonious way in which we had left him; for, when we had reached the ford of the Kasai, about ten miles distant, we found that he had sent four of his men, with orders to the ferrymen to refuse us passage. We were here duly informed that we must deliver up all the articles mentioned, and one of our men besides.
As we now crossed them both considerably farther down, and were greatly to the eastward of our first route, there can be no doubt that these rivers take the same course as the others, into the Kasai, and that I had been led into a mistake in saying that any of them flowed to the westward.
As recently as 1915 one of the Forminiere prospectors, E. G. Decker, was killed by the fierce Batshoks, the most belligerent of the Upper Kasai tribes. The Ball-Mohun group, which was the first of many expeditions, remained in the field more than two years and covered a wide area.
Water, however, could always be got by digging, a proof of which we had on our return when brought to a stand on this very plain by severe fever: about twelve miles from the Kasai my men dug down a few feet, and found an abundant supply; and we saw on one of the islands the garden of a man who, in the dry season, had drunk water from a well in like manner.
Despite incessant combat with sand-banks, snags and swift currents all these obstructions abound in the Kasai River she was still staunch. In command was the only Belgian captain that I had in the Congo, and he had been on these waters for twenty years with only one holiday in Europe during the entire time.
Will the Congo mines perform the same service for the Congo? In any event they will be a determining factor in the future world diamond output. No record of America in the Congo would be complete without a reference to the high part that our missionaries have played in the spiritualization of the land. The stronghold of our religious influence is also the Upper Kasai Basin.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking