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At Nkongo ka Lunga, the point marked by two calabashes, we inquired for the Nokki Congo, of which we had heard at Chisalla, and which still exists upon the chart, districts and villages being often confounded. All the population was now transferred inland and, like our predecessors, we were promised a two hours' climb over the rough, steep highland which lay in front.
Our excellent host bade us a kindly adieu, with many auguries of success during the last night the frogs had made a noise in the house. Briefly, we set out on September 6th. In the forty-five miles between Boma, where we enter the true trough of the Congo, and the landing-place of Banza Nokki below the cataracts, there are half-a-dozen reaches, the shortest of three, the longest of fifteen miles.
During the French emigration, the district of Banza Nokki drove slaves to the value of 60,000 dollars per annum, and the dollar is to the African the pound sterling of Europe. It is one of the hundred out-stations which supplied the main depots, Boma and Porto da Lenha.
My patience had been severely tried on first arrival at Banza Nokki. From ruler to slave every one begged for cloth and rum, till I learned to hate the names of these necessaries. Besides the five recognized kings of the district, who wore black cloth coats, all the petty chiefs of the neighbourhood flocked in, importunate to share the spoils.
Banza Ninga, the next stage, was distant two or three marches, and neither shelter nor provisions were to be found on the way. My outfit at Banza Nokki was wholly insufficient; the riverine races were no longer tractable as in the days of his father, when white men first visited the land. If determined upon bring "converted into black man" I might join some trading party into the interior.
The climate of these breezy uplands is superior even to that of Banza Nokki, which lies some 170 feet lower; and the nights are sensibly cooler. A few fathoms of altitude here make a surprising difference.
After this we fell to work at business. By dint of abundant wrangling and with an immense display of suspicion, natural under the circumstances, it was arranged that the king should forward me in a couple of his own canoes to Banza Nokki, the end of river navigation, as we were told, and falsely told; in my turn I was to pay goods valued about L6, at least three times the usual tariff.
I need hardly quote Caliban and his proposed genuflections. I had been warned by all the traders of the lower river that Banza Nokki would be to me the far-famed point of which it was said, "Quern passar o Cabo de Nam Ou tornara, ou n o," and prepared accordingly.
When "fetish is taken off," as by the seller of palm wine who tastes it in presence of the buyer, the precaution is evidently against poison. Many of these "Kizila" are self-imposed, for instance a water melon may never enter Banza Nokki, and, though slaves may eat bananas upon a journey, the master may not. Others refuse the flesh of a fowl until it has been tasted by a woman.
This Egyptian bush extends from the Congo mouth to Banza Nokki, our landing-place; it grows thickest about Porto da Lenha, and it thins out above and below: I afterwards observed it in the sweet water marshes of Syria and the Brazils. We passed sundry settlements Loango Pequeno, Loango Grande, and others and many canoes were seen plying up and down.
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