By January 20th the flotilla was back at Kinshassa, in Stanley Pool, where much progress had been made. In two hours they were at Leopoldville, after an absence of 146 days and a sail of 3,050 miles. Here everything was flourishing. The houses stood in comfortable rows, and the gardens were bringing forth vegetables in abundance. The natives were peaceable and ready to trade, the magazines were full, and as a depot it was adequate for the supply of all the up-river stations. Not so, however, with the down river stations. They were confused and required attention. Stanley therefore prepared a caravan for Vivi. Good-byes were given to the friends at Leopoldville, and the huge caravan started on its long journey over hills and prairie stretches, through dales and across streams, skirting forests here and piercing them there, past happy, peaceful villages, too far from the Congo to be annoyed by its ravines. The promising uplands of Ngombe are passed, ruled by Luteté, he who in 1882 requested the gift of a white man that he might have the pleasure of cutting his throat! But Luteté has been transformed from a ferocious chief into quite a decent citizen. Ngombe Station is a peaceable one, and Luteté furnishes the servants and carriers for it, besides sending his children to the Baptist school. The caravan then passes the Bokongo and Iyenzi people, noted for their good behaviour. All the land is fertile and the valleys exceedingly rich. Manyanga is reached. The station has not advanced, but is confused and ruinous, though probably a cool $100,000 has been expended upon it by the Association of the Congo. Again the caravan takes up its march through the Ndunga people and thence down into the broad valley of the Lukunga, where Stanley is hospitably received by Mr. and Mrs. Ingham of the Livingstone Mission, at their pretty little cottage and school, surrounded by a spacious and well tended garden. Westward of the Lukunga are plateau lands, like the American prairies, covered with tall grass, and capable of raising the richest crops of wheat and corn. The plateaus passed, a descent is made into the valley of the Kwilu, and then into those of the Luima and Lunionzo, where the Station of Banza Manteka is reached, close by which is a Livingstone Mission house. The prospect from the hilltops here is a grand, embracing sight of nearly a dozen native villages whose dwellers are devoted to the cultivation of ground-nuts.