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These huge drums have an uncanny carrying power. The beats are like the dots and dashes of telegraphy. All the native news of Central Africa is transmitted from village to village in this way. I could continue this narrative of native habits and customs indefinitely but we must get back to the "Lusanga." On board was a real character. He was Peter the capita.
I was the only passenger on the "Lusanga," which had been reconstructed for Lord Leverhulme's trip through the Congo in 1914. I occupied the suite installed for him and it was my last taste of luxury for many a day. The captain, Albert Carrie, was a retired lieutenant in the British Royal Navy, and the chief engineer was a Scotchman.
His German almost had a Potsdam flavour. He told me that he had danced before the former Kaiser and had met many members of the Teutonic nobility. Yet the thing that stood out most vividly in his memory was the taste of German beer. He sighed for it daily. Six days after leaving Kinshassa I reluctantly bade farewell to Peter and the "Lusanga" at Dima.
Fortunately, the "Lusanga," one of the Huileries du Congo Belge steamers, was about to start for the Kwilu River, which branches off from the Kasai, and the company was kind enough to order it to take me to Dima, which was off the prescribed itinerary of the vessel. On a brilliant morning at the end of June I set forth.
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