File:A voice from the Congo - comprising stories, anecdotes, and descriptive notes (1910) (14597003988).jpg

Identifier: voicefromcongoco00ward (find matches)
Title: A voice from the Congo : comprising stories, anecdotes, and descriptive notes
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Ward, Herbert, 1863-1919
Subjects: Ward, Herbert, 1863-1919 Africa, Central -- Description and travel Africa, Central -- Social life and customs
Publisher: New York : Charles Scribner's Sons
Contributing Library: University of Connecticut Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Connecticut Libraries

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preferred carrying a heavy load two hundredmiles, over most difficult country, to steady employ-ment day after day. The sense of freedom, to travelor to idle as they felt inclined, was more in harmonywith the African nature than the routine of steadydaily work. A few handfuls of pea-nuts or cones of maize com-posed their provisions. They toiled all day overstony hills and waded through swamps with heavyloads upon their heads, many hours at a time withouta halt. When darkness came, they stopped for the nightwherever they chanced to be. They drew their flim-sy loin cloths around their shoulders, and stretchedthemselves before the fire, upon the bare ground tosleep. During the night, gusts of cold wind or a rain-storm would awaken them. They would stir up thefire and crouch before it with chattering teeth. Atdawn they arose, yawned, stretched their stiffenedlimbs, rearranged their loin cloths, and with theirheavy loads they started off again to cover perhapsfifteen miles without a halt.
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A vine bridge, Lower CongoDrawn by the Author SOUVENIRS 215 Although transport by carriers within the cataractregion of the Lower Congo River is to-day a thingof the past, owing to the construction of the rail-way, the traveller bound for the far interior ofAfrica by way of the mighty water route of theCongo River had, twenty years ago, almost at theoutset of his journey to undertake an arduousoverland march of some three hundred miles be-fore reaching Stanley Pool, the point whence light-draught steamers were able to convey him intothe heart of the Continent. From Stanley Poolthe Upper Congo, with its northern and southernaffluents, affords about five thousand miles of water-way, which is navigable for small steamers of lightdraught. This overland march through the LowTer Congocountry was rendered necessary by reason of the suc-cession of formidable cataracts, which more or lessobstruct the navigation of the Congo from Matadi—a point situated one hundred miles from the ocean—as f

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