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Updated: May 3, 2025
There is a gay social life, and on July first, the anniversary of the birth of the Congo Free State, and when a celebration is usually held, I saw a spirited football game between British and Belgian teams. Most of the big international British trading companies that operate in Africa have branches in Kinshassa and it is not difficult to assemble an English-speaking quorum.
It is the capital of Little America in the jungle and therefore became the objective of the second stage of my Congo journey. Kinshassa is nearly a thousand miles from Tshikapa. To get there I had to retrace my way up the Congo as far as Kwamouth, where the Kasai empties into the parent stream. I also found that it was necessary to change boats at Dima and continue on the Kasai to Djoko Punda.
In the matter of transportation Kinshassa is really the key to the heart of the Congo. It is the rail-head of the narrow-gauge line from Matadi and all merchandise that comes from Europe is transshipped at this point to the boats that go up the Congo river as far as Stanleyville. Thus every ton of freight and every traveller bound for the interior must pass through Kinshassa.
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.
One morning when we were about two hundred miles north of Kinshassa I heard the whir of a motor engine, a rare sound in those parts. I thought of aeroplanes and instinctively looked up. Flying overhead toward Coquilhatville was a 300-horse power hydroplane containing two people.
Serene and majestic, it is often well-nigh overwhelming in its immensity. Between Stanleyville and Kinshassa there are four thousand islands, some of them thirty miles in length. As the boat picks its way through them you feel as if you were travelling through an endless tropical park of which the river provides the paths. It has been well called a "Venice of Vegetation."
At the time of my visit there were twelve going mines in the Congo field, and three new ones were in various stages of advancement. The Forminiere engineers also operate the diamond concessions of the Kasai Company and the Bas Congo Katanga Railway which will run from the Katanga to Kinshassa.
At Dima I had the final heart-throb of the trip. I had arranged to take the "Fumu N'Tangu," a sister ship of the "Madeleine," from this point to Kinshassa. When I arrived I found that she was stuck on a sandbank one hundred miles down the river. My whole race against time to catch the August steamer would have been futile if I could not push on to Kinshassa at once.
When the railway from the Katanga is constructed its prestige will increase. Kinshassa owes a part of its development to the Huileries du Congo Belge. Its plant dominates the river front. There are a dozen huge tanks into which the palm-oil flows from the barges. The fluid is then run into casks and sent down by rail to Matadi, whence it goes in steamers to Europe.
It was at Kinshassa that I learned of the nominations of Cox and Harding for the Presidency, although the news was months old. The morning after I reached Stanley Pool I boarded a special car on the historic narrow-gauge railway that runs from Kinshassa to Matadi. At the station I was glad to meet Major and Mrs. Wallace, who like myself were bound for home.
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