Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/521

 160 feet high; but those of Gingunshi, the last of these impediments, are little over 8 feet, and might perhaps be surmounted by light craft. After describing a great curve to the west, the Kwango trends eastwards, receiving 7 or 8 miles above its mouth the Juma, a rival stream so large that Grenfell was unable to ascertain which was the more copious of the two. Nearly opposite its mouth it is joined by the navigable emissary from Lake Leopold, which forms a continuation of the Lu-Kenye, a river flowing parallel with the Sankuru.

Below these confluences the Kassai-Kwa collects its waters in a deep narrow

channel piercing the rocky hills by which it was formerly separated from the Congo. Here the current, at the narrows scarcely 500 yards wide, has a velocity of about 4 miles an hour and a depth of certainly over 120 feet. Even at Kwamouth, where it joins the Congo, it is scarcely more than 700 yards broad. During its south-westerly course beyond Kwamouth the Congo, here from 3,000 to 4,500 yards wide, flows between ranges of hills which continually increase in elevation southwards, and which lower down recede to the right and left, the intervening space being occupied by the almost circular Nkuna basin, better