the Nzadi issues from a lake which he described as having a sea-horizon, where canoes lose sight of land, and where they are in danger from violent storms; he described the latter with great animation, and his descriptions much reminded me of Dibbie, the “Dark Lake.”  Probably this was genuine geography, although he could not tell the name of the inner sea, the Achelunda of old cosmographers.  Tuckey’s map also lays down in N. lat. 2deg. to 3deg. and in E. long. (G.) 17deg. to 18deg. a great swamp draining to the south; and his “Narrative” (p. 178) tells us that some thirty days above Banza Mavunda, which is 20 to 24 miles above the Yellala, “the river issues by many small streams from a great marsh or lake of mud.”  This would suggest a reservoir alternately flooded and shrinking; possibly lacustrine bays and the bulges formed by the middle course of the Lualaba.

Despite the promise, we were delayed by King Nekorado, whose town, Palabala, lies at some distance, and who, negro-like, will consult only his own convenience.  In the afternoon we were visited by a royal son, who announced that his royal father feared the heat, but would appear with the moon, which was equivalent to saying that we might expect him on the morrow.  He is known to be a gueux, and Gidi Mavunga boasts of having harried and burned sundry of his villages, so he must make up by appearance for deficient reality.  His appearance was announced by the Mpungi, the Egyptian Zagharit, the Persian Kil; this “lullilooing” in the bush country becomes an odd moaning howl like the hyaena’s laugh.  Runners and criers preceded the hammock, which he had probably mounted at the first field; a pet slave carried his chair, covered with crimson cloth, and Frederique his “linguister” paced proudly by its side.

After robing himself in Nelongo’s house, King Nekorado held a levee under the shadiest fig, which acted bentang-tree; all the moleques squatting in a demi-lune before the presence.  A short black man, with the round eyes, the button-like nose, the fat circular face, and the weakly vanishing chin which denote the lower type of Congoese, he coldly extended a chimpanzee’s paw without rising or raising his eyes, in token that nothing around him deserved a glance.  I made him au-fait as to my intentions, produced, as “mata-bicho,” a bottle of gin, and sent a dash of costa-fina, to which a few yards of satin-stripe were thrown in.

The gin was drunk with the usual greed, and the presents were received with the normal objections.

“Why should not I, a king like Nessudikira, receive a ‘dash’ equal to his?”

“He is my host, I pay him for bed and board!”

“We are all cousins; why shall one be treated better than the other?”

“As you please! you have received your due, and to-day we march.”

After this I rose and returned to my hut ready for the inevitable “row.”