Then to bed, but not to sleep, for the boys to save themselves trouble, had not fixed the mosquito net properly. In my innocence I merely ordered them to do it and had not stood by and watched. It is indeed necessary always to see that the native does as he is told, for the moment one's back is turned, he is eating if there is anything rotten enough at hand to tempt him and if not, he quietly goes to sleep. Even these State servants who speak the native language and also a kind of French, really live the lives of animals, for they eat, drink, and sleep if left alone and only work when they are shown how, and watched all the time. The result was that I spent a most horrible night, for the mosquitoes were terribly hostile and evidently recognised a new European with some healthy blood. In the morning, my head, which I had had shaved in the Congo fashion, was covered with large bumps and face, neck, hands and wrists were all blotches. It was therefore with little appetite that I sat down to a breakfast of bread, dutch cheese, curious tinned butter and weak coffee without milk. Little however, did I think then that in six short months a Congo steamer would seem like a first class hotel, so entirely is everything altered by comparison. [Illustration: CATARACTS AT LEOPOLDVILLE.] CHAPTER III. The Higher Congo. Next day we make a formal call on Mr. Mahieu, Inspecteur d'Etat of the Congo State, whose headquarters are at Leopoldville. He is a very busy man with a multitude of duties, for the paternal system is continued all through the State and the most trivial matters are always referred to the highest official in the neighbourhood. As we are to lunch at the Residency, we do not stay long, but take a ride with Commandant and Mme. Sillye on four of the horses the former purchased at Dakar. Although a little stiff after their holiday of a month, they have not been otherwise affected by their sea voyage and two days in the train. Along the beach are many steamers charging and discharging and others on the slips being repaired or partly built. These steamers are all brought out in sections and put together on the beach. They are flat bottomed, are driven by stern wheels and only draw three or four feet of water. They all burn wood, and special depots are formed at intervals on the rivers where stores of this fuel are collected. Should however, a steamer run short, it is only necessary to stop and send the crew ashore with knives for the banks are lined with forest.