United States or Northern Mariana Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
One fact acquired was that this stream was the Congo, which the natives call Kwango, or Ikoutouya Kongo, and which is the Zaire under one longitude, the Loualaba under another. It was indeed that great artery of Central Africa, to which the heroic Stanley has given the glorious name of "Livingstone," but which the geographers should perhaps replace by his own.
It extends from the Nourse, in the south, as far as the Zaire in the north, and the two principal towns form two ports, Benguela and St. Paul' de Loanda, the capital of the colony which set off from the kingdom of Portugal. In the interior this country was then almost unknown. Few travelers had dared to venture there.
"The Zaire is of such force that no ship can get in against the current but near to the shore; yea, it prevails against the ocean's saltness three-score, and as some say, four-score miles within the sea, before his proud waves yield their full homage, and receive that salt temper in token of subjection. I was disappointed after the Gambia and Gaboon rivers in the approach to the Congo.
But in this choice company hers was not the only voice, though it was heard above all the others. Thought and wit flashed and sparkled. Dramas were played the "Zaire" and "Tancred" of Voltaire, and tragedies written by herself. Mme. Recamier acted the Aricie to Mme. de Stael's Phedre. This life that seems to us so fascinating, has been described too often to need repetition.
"You have done splendidly, Bones, splendidly!" said Hamilton, and clapped him on the back; "really you are a most enterprising devil." "Not at all, sir," said Bones. He ate his dinner on the Zaire, answering with monosyllables the questions which Hamilton put to him regarding the quest and the place of the origin of this wonderful beast.
"Kill!" he roared, and went out in the white light of dawn to greet ten Ochori canoes, riding in fanshape formation, having as their centre a white and speckless Zaire alive with Houssas and overburdened with the slim muzzles of Hotchkiss guns. "Oh, Ko!" said N'gori dismally, "this is a bad palaver!"
The doctor persevered, and on the 4th of April, he reached the banks of the Coango, a large watercourse which forms the eastern boundary of the Portuguese possessions, and flows northward into the Zaire. Six days after, Livingstone entered Cassange, where the trader Alvez had seen him passing through, and on the 31st of May he arrived at Saint Paul de Loanda.
Lessing has, with the most irresistible and victorious wit, pointed out the ludicrous nature of the very plans of Rodogune, Semiramis, Merope, and Zaire. The lines with which Theseus in the Oedipus of Corneille opens his part, are deserving of one of the first places: Quelque ravage affreux qu'etale ici la peste L'absence aux vrais amans est encore plus funeste.
The Orinoco, the Rio Magdalena, and the Congo or Zaire are the only great rivers of the equinoctial region of the globe, which, rising near the equator, have their mouths in a much higher latitude, though still within the tropics. The former flow from the temperate to the torrid zone.
There were many points of interest on which he required first-hand information. He carried with him to the Zaire large exercise books on which he had pasted such pregnant labels as "Native Customs," "Dances," "Ju-jus," "Ancient Legends," "Folk-lore," etc. They were mostly blank, and represented projected chapters of his great work. All might have been well with Bones.
Word Of The Day