Page:Last essays - 1926.djvu/182

156 there.” Go there he did, and these notebooks are the first expression of his fulfilled resolve.

The map will enable the reader to plot out, with reasonable accuracy, the exact route followed by Conrad on his overland journey, from Matadi, which is about one hundred miles above the mouth of the Congo, to Nselemba, on or near the southeast corner of Stanley Poola distance of probably more than two hundred and fifty miles from Matadiwhere it was that he joined the Roi des Belges, as second in command, for the up-river voyage. The places and streams alluded to on this overland journey have been given on the map in Conrad’s own spelling, even where their names have been altered (unless beyond recognition, which may have happened in certain instances) in existing atlases, many of which have been examined, or can only be placed approximately, owing to their not being mentioned at all. The mapping of the Congo is not in a very advanced state, and, what with the paucity of the entries and the contradictory nature of the information, precise accuracy is not attainable. All the same, it is easy enough to trace the general line of his march, which lay much nearer the banks of the Congo than lies the railway which now runs between Matadi and Kinshasa on Stanley Pool.

The following is a reproduction of the first notebook alonenot, however, of the list of names, persons, books, stores, and the calculations that fill the last pagesconsisting of thirty-two manuscript pages, not all of which are full, and twelve of which are further curtailed by Conrad’s sectional drawings of the day’s march. The given spelling and abbreviations have been adhered to throughout—they help to heighten its true flavourbut the paragraphing and the punctuation have been freely altered.