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 troublesome in these parts and have since migrated into the interior leaving the ancient sites to elephants and other beasts.  It is very much more comfortable on the Delivrance than on the larger steamers, for, being the only passenger, I have plenty of room in the cabin below and as usual in these small craft, we have all our meals on the bridge.

[Illustration:  LOADING A BARGE.]