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Updated: June 18, 2025
In the morning a note from Ducret invited Everett and Cuthbert to join him in an all-day excursion to the water-fall beyond Matadi. Everett answered the note in person. The thought of seeing the woman calmed and steadied him like a dose of morphine.
There still was a piece of the ice remaining, and as the interest in the bathtub had begun to drag I handed it to one of my audience. He yelled as though I had thrust into his hand a drop of vitriol, and, leaping in the air, threw the ice on the floor and dared any one to touch it. From the "personal" boys who had travelled to Matadi the Mission boys had heard of ice. But none had ever seen it.
The nickname given to Stanley by the natives is to-day the nickname of the government. Matadi means rock. When Stanley reached the town of Matadi, which is surrounded entirely by rock, he began with dynamite to blast roads for his caravan.
I walked all over it in an hour, and here you walk very slow. There are three or four big trading stores AND a tennis court. It is, however, a dreary place. We called on the missionary and his wife, but she does not speak English and their point of view of everything was not cheerful or instructive. Cecil plans to remain on board while at Matadi and return with this same boat to Boma.
When he learned that even a cablegram could not reach his home in less than eighteen days, that the missionaries to whom he brought letters were a three months' journey from the coast and from each other, his impatience was chastened to wonder, and, later, to awe. His education began at Matadi, where he waited until the river steamer was ready to start for Leopoldville.
For the two hundred and fifty miles the fare is two hundred francs, and one is limited to sixty pounds of luggage. That was the weight allowed by the Japanese to each war correspondent, and as they gave us six months in Tokio in which to do nothing else but weigh our equipment, I left Matadi without a penalty.
This person we presently recognised as one of the chiefs who had accompanied Matadi alongside earlier in the day; and he brought a message to the effect that the king had ascertained that the white men about whom we had inquired were all safe in a village a day's march distant, and that Matadi would send for them on the morrow, unless we were prepared to make him a present of a musket, five strings of beads, a bandana handkerchief, and a roll of printed calico, in which case he would so far discommode himself as to send off a messenger at once.
Matadi is built on a solid piece of granite. The name is a version of the word matari which means rock. In certain parts of Africa the letter "r" is often substituted for "d." Stanley's native name was in reality "Bula Matari," but on account of the license that I have indicated he is more frequently known as "Bula Matadi," the title now bestowed on all officials in the Congo.
Each night, with the other white exiles of Matadi, the two adversaries met in the Café Franco-Belge. There, with puzzled interest, Everett watched them sitting at separate tables, surrounded by mutual friends, excitedly playing dominoes.
Matadi badly wanted us to pass some of the articles down over the side that he might examine them still more minutely, but I would not permit this, thinking it best to still leave some of his curiosity unsatisfied, and at length, after they had been alongside nearly an hour and a half, and had asked for a second and even a third sight of most of the goods, they reluctantly retired, their eyes glistening with cupidity, Matadi promising to institute an immediate inquiry as to the whereabouts of the white men, and to let me know the result as soon as possible.
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