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Updated: June 18, 2025
At Matadi, which is about a hundred miles from the sea, navigation on the Congo River ceases because here begins a succession of cataracts that extend almost as far as Leopoldville. In the old days all merchandise had to be carried in sixty-pound loads to Stanley Pool on the heads of natives. The way is hard for it is up and down hill and traverses swamps and morasses.
Having reached Southampton, we went on board the S.S. Leopoldville, a ship of about 5,000 tons burden, very clean and well-found. She belongs to the Compagnie maritime belge which runs a ship every third week from Antwerp and Southampton to Boma and Matadi. We sailed about 2 p.m. and a savoury smell from the galley reminded us that it was about seven hours since we had breakfasted.
In this respect it suffered the same experience as all the other pioneering African railways and especially those of Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, Uganda, and the Soudan. The scenery between Thysville and Matadi is noble and inspiring. The track winds through grim highlands and along lovely valleys.
Matadi is the administrative center of the Lower Congo railway which has extensive yards, repair-shops, and hospitals for whites and blacks. Nearby are the storage tanks and pumping station of the oil pipe line that extends from Matadi to Kinshassa. It was installed just before the Great War and has only been used for one shipment of fluid.
It is very possible that this will be transhipped at Banana into a lighter which will be towed to Matadi; secondly it will travel by train to Leopoldville; thirdly by steamer to Bumba beyond which point the larger vessels do not run; fourthly by small steamer to Ibembo; fifthly by canoe to Dzamba during which journey it has to be carried by hand past some rapids; sixthly by the Milz to Buta and seventhly by hand to Bomokandi.
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.
"No, I cannot say dat I do; but I t'ink about one week from now," was the answer. "Then, thank God, we are still in time!" I ejaculated. "Now, Senor Lobo, I presume you are acquainted with this chief, Matadi, are you not? You have probably had dealings with him, eh?
Her banks, which have been low and woody, with, on the Portuguese side, glimpses of boundless plateaux, become towering hills of rock. At Matadi the cataracts and rapids begin, and for two hundred miles continue to Stanley Pool, which is the beginning of the Upper Congo. Leopoldville is situated on Stanley Pool, just to the right of where the rapids start their race to the south.
To one used more to ocean than to Congo traffic it was somewhat bewildering to see the five-thousand-ton steamer make fast to a tree, a sand-bank looming up three fathoms off her quarter, and the blades of her propeller, as though they were the knives of a lawn-mower, cutting the eel-grass. At Matadi the Congo makes one of her lightning changes.
My scarcely-veiled threat to destroy his town was received by Matadi with scornful laughter, the savage declaring in set terms that he did not believe in the power of the white men to produce either lightning or thunder; and as to our accomplishing the threatened destruction without those means why, there were a few of his warriors present who would have a word to say upon that matter.
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