Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/396

 When he had passed the Leketi, a southern branch of the Alima, his route lay across the plateau of Achicuya, an elevated district lying about 2,600 feet above sea level, and separated from another similar plateau (the Aboma) by the river Mpama. (Mpama-Ox.)

The chief of Achicuya received the traveller in a friendly manner, and a similar reception awaited him on reaching the Abooma tribe. These latter people he describes as being the handsomest and bravest he had met; and it was from them he received information regarding the Congo and the powerful chief Makoko, whose sovereignty the Abooma acknowledge.

Leaving the Abooma district he travelled along the Lefini (the Lawson of Mr. Stanley), and just as he was finishing the construction of a raft to descend the Lefini, he received messengers from King Makoko with friendly greetings and offers of assistance. This much facilitated his further proceedings. He descended the Lefini with the envoy as far as Ngampo on his raft, and then landed and went overland for two days across an uninhabited tableland. He states his march over the sun-scorched plateau was most wearisome; and that two days' march must have been a choice spot, if, as I conjecture, this tableland was of the same formation as those truly horrible Pallaballa mountains, that have in their composition an immense percentage of mica, which glistens in the sun like diamond dust, and dazzles you, and which, bare of vegetation, reflect back the burning heat in a scorching way, forming a layer of hot air, and making the whole desolate, hideous scene vibrate before your eyes as you can see things vibrating through the hot air over a line of gas jets. Never shall I forget my short experience in the Pallaballa range. Never have I in all West Africa come across a thing that came up to one's ideals of the infernal region so completely. And the nights, when you had the whole earth round you exhaling a heavy, hot breath with the heat it had been soaking in during the day. Small wonder M. de Brazza should have begun to find fault with his guide, Makoko's envoy, just before eleven o'clock on the second night after a forced march." Fortunately shortly afterwards he came in sight of the Congo. "It appeared like an immense