The Congo with its multitudinous branches forms a river-basin unequalled even by that of the Mississippi. This great territory, over fourteen hundred miles in breadth, covers an area of nearly a million square miles. Though mere size is not always a measure of importance, yet this region is unsurpassed, in respect to natural resources, by any part of the world. Second only to the Amazon in volume, the Congo precipitates about 2,000,000 cubic feet of water each second into the Atlantic. This immense basin has been divided by geographers into three gradual terraces: the first and lowest is near the coast; the second, in the region of the Upper Congo; and the highest in the vicinity of the great lakes. According to the official Act the basin is bounded by the watersheds of the neighbouring basins of the Niari, the Ogowe, the Shari, and the Nile on the north; by the eastern watershed line of the affluents of Lake Tanganyika on the east; and by the watersheds of the basins of the Zambesi and the Loge on the south. Congoland is about 1,500,000 square miles in extent. From its western frontage of 400 miles it broadens eastward until at Lake Tanganyika it has a frontier of about 1500 miles. The numerous ramifications of the Congo open rapid and economic channels of communication to the interior. To this magnificent system of waters the country also owes its unequalled fertility. Many of the rivers now practically useless can in time be rendered navigable by the skill of the engineer. Where blasting out channels is not feasible canals can be built to connect the navigable parts of the stream. It is obvious, too, that the effects on that torrid climate of these great rivers, from one to twenty miles in breadth, must be considerable. Without them the country would be an arid desert, another Sahara, deadly to life, both animal and vegetable. We shall first follow the successive stages of the Congo, as the Chambesi, the Luapula, and the Lualaba, in the huge watershed on the eastern border between Lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika. [Sidenote: Source of the Congo.] The source of the Congo is in the Chingampo Mountains, in British territory, and about 50 miles from the western confines of German East Africa, whence it issues as the Chambesi. It was Livingstone who, in 1867, discovered the Chambesi. Mistaking it for the undiscovered source of the Nile, he explored it towards the south-west—250 miles—as far as Lake Bangweolo. Thence he followed its gradual curve to the north, first as the Luapula, through Lake Moero, as far as Ankorro; and then as the Lualaba, in a north-westerly direction to Nyangwe, 1300 miles from its source. The river assumes the distinctive name of the Congo first at Nyangwe. It was from this place that Stanley, in 1876, made his famous descent of the river. The journey, which covered 1660 miles by water and 140 miles by land, was accomplished in 281 days.