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Updated: May 20, 2025
Opposite it is the "Quoin Hill," bluff to the stream, and falling west with gradual incline. The noise of this higher fall can hardly be heard at Nkulu, except on the stillest nights.
We descended the dividing ridge, which is also painfully steep, especially near the foot, and crossed the rolling hollow with its three chalybeate brooks, beyond which lay our destination. Tuckey describes the hills between Boma and Nkulu as stony and barren, which is perhaps a little too strong.
I had been warned when setting out that a shipful of goods would not take me past Nkulu. This was soon confirmed. On the evening after arrival I had directed my interpreter to sound the "bush- kings" touching the expense of a march to Nsundi.
At Nkulu an intelligent native traveller whom I examined through the interpreters, strongly advised the line of the southern bank: five stages would lead to Nsundi, and the ten "kings" on the road are not such "rapacious gentlemen" as our present hosts. A glance at Tuckey's map shows that this southern line cuts across a long westerly deflection of the bed.
"Progress" seems unknown to the pipe; the most advanced nations are somewhat behind the barbarians, and in the matter of snuff the Tupi or Brazilian savage has never been rivalled. The greater part of the vendors seemed to be women, of the buyers men; there was more difference of appearance than in any European fair, and the population about Nkulu seemed to be a very mixed race.
Presently we reached the dividing ridge, 1,394 feet high, between Banza Vivi and Nkulu, whose palm-trees, thrown out against the sky, bore 82deg. The actual foreground, a hollow between two land-waves, could not conceal the "Crocodile's Head:" the latter, five miles off and bearing 65deg.
It led to Banza Nkulu, a shabby settlement of unclean plantations and ragged huts of far inferior construction: stacks of grass were piled upon the ground, and this new thatch was greatly wanted. Here the lands of the "bush-men" begin: instead of marching directly to the chief's house, we sat in our wet clothes under a friendly wild fig.
Native travellers from Nkulu usually take the mountain-path cutting across an easterly bend of the bed to Banza Menzi, the Manzy of Tuckey's text and the Menzi Macooloo of his map. It is situated on a level platform 9 miles north of Nkulu, and they find the stream still violent. The second march is to Banza Ninga, by the First Expedition called "Inga," an indirect line of five hours = 15 miles.
The wild people showed no feeling against foreigners, and the Nkulu linguisters during their last visit begged me to return as soon as possible and "no tell lie." I could only promise that their claims should be laid before the public. Accordingly a report of this trip was at once sent in to Her Majesty's Foreign Office, and a paper was read before the British Association of September, 1864.
Carli well describes this season when he says: "The winter of the kingdom of Congo is the mild spring or autumn of Italy; it is not subject to rains, but every morning there falls a dew which fertilizes the earth." This meteor was not observed on the highlands of Banza Nokki and Nkulu; it is probably confined to the low country, where I found it falling heavily. The March to Banza Nkulu.
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