Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/520

 428 WEST APEICA. deeper depressions are still flooded during the inundations. Sucli is Lake Matumba, on the left side, which at high water probably communicates with the still larger Lake Leopold IL, draining to a southern affluent of the Congo. West of the U-Banghi the Congo is joined from the north by the Likwalla (Likulna), the Mossaka (Bossaka) of the early French explorers, which has been recently navigated by Jacques de Brazza and Pecile for nearly 200 miles. IS'ear the Likwalla junction the Congo is also joined by the Bunga and the Alima from the north, the latter presenting if not the shortest at least one of the easiest overland routes from the coast to the middle Congo. Below the Alima follow the Nkheni and the Lefeni from the Ogoway waterparting, which reach the right bank of the Congo nearly opposite the confluence of the Kwa, which with its vast ramification of secondary streams constitutes the largest eastern tributary of the main artery. The Kwa, continued far to the south by the Kassai, Sankuru, and Lo-Mami, has the same hydrographic importance on the left that the U-Banghi holds on the right bank of the Congo. Its farthest headstreams rise in the vicinity of the Cuanza and of the western affluents of the Zambese, where the Kassai flows first eastwards for 120 miles to a marshy plain where it is joined by the sluggish Lo-Tembwa from the little Lake Dilolo, which sends another emissary of the same name to the Liba head stream of the Zambese. Thus the two great arteries, Zambese and Congo, form a continuous waterway across the whole continent, which at Lake Dilolo offers an example of streams flowing to two different basins, analogous to that of the Cassiquiare, communicating both with the Orinoco and Amazons in South America. According to Livingstone, Dilolo stands at an altitude of 4,000 feet above the sea. Just below the confluence of the Dilolo emissary the Kassai trends northwards, flowing from the plateaux to the central depression in a valley parallel with those of the Lu-Lua in the east, and of all the other streams rising in the southern part of the Congo basin. Beyond the depression which was formerly an inland sea, the Kassai turns north-westwards, receiving from every valley a fresh affluent, and at the Mbimbi Falls resuming its northerly course to the Lu-Lua confluence. From the east it is also joined by the Sankuru (Sankullu) with its Lo-Mami headstream, and from the southern plateaux by the Tenda, or Lo-Anghe, and farther down by the Kwango (Kwa-Xgo), that is, the Nzadi, Zaire, or Zezere of the natives, which the Portuguese traders often confounded -with the Kassai itself, regarding it as the true main stream rising in a fathomless lake, one of the " Mothers of the Nile." Even on the maps of the present centurj^ the Zaire- Kwango was still represented as escaping from a great Lake Aquilonda. Like the Kassai, the Kwango rises at an altitude of 5,300 feet, but instead of trending eastwards it escapes from the plateau regions by following the shortest or northern course along the east foot of the western border ranges. But the decline across a space of five degrees of latitude is so great that this great river is quite unnavigable except for about 180 miles from its mouth. The Kaparanga Falls, one of the many rapids and cataracts obstructing the current, are no less than