Trading Company, reach Bumba at sunset.

This is an important shipping port, for the large vessels stop here
owing to the difficulty of navigating the Congo higher up. All the cargo
for Stanley Falls and the Upper Congo, as well as that for Uele, has
therefore to be transhipped here. The place is designed in a series of
squares, one side of each being formed by the river while the spaces
thus left are filled with well kept gardens, the whole being very
effective. Mr. Simon, the commandant of the Station kindly lends me a
house and also arranges to allow the _Delivrance_ to take me up to
Stanley Falls as soon as her cargo has been discharged. On each side of
the Post are villages extending along the river bank. The men here wear
a loin cloth, but the women only bangles, and the tatouage is varied and
extensive.

Next day the _Delivrance_ was charged with sheets of corrugated iron for
building purposes and it was very interesting to watch the natives
carrying these to the ship. Like some civilised people, the natives are
so lazy that they often give themselves a great deal of work in the
effort to avoid it. The plates were of various sizes and shapes and
consequently of various weights. Sauntering slowly up to the stack on
the beach, one of the porters would examine it carefully and search for
as small a load as possible. Then he would either lift the upper ten or
twelve plates or try to pull the one he had chosen out from the stack.
Having accomplished his object thus with great exertion, he would put
the plate on his head and carry it leisurely the few yards to the boat.
Of course the larger ones had to be moved some time, and in reality at
the end of the day the lazy fellows had thus done more work than was
necessary. Compared with Hindu or Chinese coolies, the Central Africans
indeed both in the plantations and at the dock side, accomplish rather
less than half the amount of work in the same time. The paddlers, on the
other hand, cannot be called lazy, and when propelling canoes against
strong currents or up rapids, exert themselves to the utmost.

We leave Bumba on December 9th in the _Delivrance_ and turn up stream.
After passing the mouth of the Itimbiri the banks are unoccupied for
many miles, dense unbroken forest lining each shore. Here and there is a
wood post and we pass also two considerable areas which had evidently
been cleared some time ago and occupied by villages. The people,
however, were very trouble