At Nkulu an intelligent native traveller whom I examined through the interpreters, strongly advised the line of the southern bank: five stages would lead to Nsundi, and the ten "kings" on the road are not such "rapacious gentlemen" as our present hosts. A glance at Tuckey's map shows that this southern line cuts across a long westerly deflection of the bed. I had been warned when setting out that a shipful of goods would not take me past Nkulu. This was soon confirmed. On the evening after arrival I had directed my interpreter to sound the "bush- kings" touching the expense of a march to Nsundi. They modestly demanded 100 lbs. of beads, fifty kegs of powder, forty demijohns of rum, twelve uniforms, ten burnuses, a few swords, and 200 whole pieces of various expensive cloths, such as Costa Finas, Riscados, and satin stripes,--briefly, about £300 for three days' march. It suggested the modest demand made by King Adooley of Badagry, from the brothers Lander. The air of Nkulu was a cordial; the aspect of the land suggested that it is the threshold to a country singularly fertile and delicious, in fact, the paradise which Bishop Berkeley (Gaudentio di Lucca) placed in Central Africa. The heat of the lowlands had disappeared,-- "The scorching ray Here pierceth not, impregnate with disease." The thermometer, it is true, did not sink below 67° (F.), whilst the "Expedition" (p. 118) had found it 60° in August, even at Boma during the dewy nights. The lowest temperature of the water was 75°, and the highest 79°, whereas at the mouth it is sometimes 83°; Tuckey gives 76°-77°; 74° in the upper river above the Falls, and 73° where there are limestone springs. The oxydization of iron suddenly ceased; after a single day's drying, the plants were ready for a journey to England, and meat which wrill hardly keep one day in the lowlands is here eatable on the fifth. Whilst the important subject of "dash" was being discussed I set out in my hammock to visit a quitanda or market held hard by. As we started, the women sang, "Lungwá u telemene ko Mwanza Ko Yellala o kwenda." "The boat that arrives at the Mwanza (the River) the same shall go up to the Yellala" (rapids). It is part of a chant which the mothers of men now old taught them in childhood, and the sole reminiscence of the Congo Expedition, whose double boats, the Ajôjôs of the Brazil, struck their rude minds half a century ago.