Volume 1

The Congo and the founding of its free state : a story of work and exploration / by Henry M. Stanley ; with over one hundred full-page and smaller illustrations, two large maps, and several smaller ones.

  • Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton), 1841-1904.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Congo and the founding of its free state : a story of work and exploration / by Henry M. Stanley ; with over one hundred full-page and smaller illustrations, two large maps, and several smaller ones. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    slave traders from the interior. As one proof of this I need only cite the pertinacity with which map-makers and geographers cling to the famous “ kingdom of Anzichi, and the people of Anzichana living on both sides of the river Zaire.” The “ Anzichana,” however, literally signify people of the interior, and “Anzichi,” or rather Nseke, means “ inland.” In my book ‘ Through the Dark Continent,’ I also speak of a town or large market called Ngoinbe, whereas alter obtaining a smattering of the language I now know “ Ngombe' ” to mean simply inland. And during my early voyages up and down the Congo I heard of a place called Mpama, and had located it pretty exactly as I thought in the Uyanzi country, when suddenly I learned that Mpama in the language of Uyanzi stood also for “ inland.” Another instance of the singular ignorance of early writers respecting the lands and rivers they attempted to describe is the extraordinary description of the Lower Congo given by Duarte Lopez in 1578. “ The river is navigable for twenty-five miles with large boats till it reaches a strait between rocks, where the waters pour down with such tremendous noise as to be heard nearly eight miles off. This place is called by the Portuguese Cachivera—that is a fall or cataract, as it resembles that of the Nile.” In the following three quotations will be found further proof that the writers of the 16th and 17th centuries either were unable to confine themselves to exact description of what they saw, or, as was most probable, they had no better authorities for their state- ments than slave traders and coast gossip. .1578 Lepez