CHAPTER I. The Discovery of the Congo.

he took once more to the water, only to find another cataract a few miles lower down. This was his constant experience, while the porterage past these obstacles often involved the conveyance of his heavy canoes, stores, etc., 700 and 1,000 feet up the steep banks of the river, four or five miles overland, and down again into the deep gorge. Stores were running short, food was scarce, canoes were lost in the rapids, some of his men were drowned, including Frank Pocock, his only surviving white companion. Privations, sickness, and murderous natives had thinned his ranks, but he struggled on. Clearing the Ntombo Mataka Falls, he found a reach of ninety miles of very bad, but navigable water, and at the end of which were the great Isangila Falls. There, learning that he was within a few days’ journey of factories and white men, he left the river, and his weary company toiled over the steep quartz hills and reached Mboma in August, 1877, in an almost starving condition. A year of drought and great scarcity of food had added much to his difficulties. However, the journey was accomplished, the Congo River had been traced, the highway into the heart of Africa had been explored. Taking his people down the last quiet sixty miles of the river, he arranged for their return to Zanzibar, via the Cape of Good Hope. Having seen them safe home again, and rewarded their devotion and toil, he reached England to announce his great discovery.