official residences of
the Government. I walked all over it in an hour, and here you walk
very slow. There are three or four big trading stores AND a tennis
court. It is, however, a dreary place. We called on the missionary
and his wife, but she does not speak English and their point of view of
everything was not cheerful or instructive. Cecil plans to remain on
board while at Matadi and return with this same boat to Boma. I want
her to go home in this boat or in some other, as I believe Boma most
unhealthy and I know it to be most uncomfortable. She would have to go
to a hotel which is very hot and rough, although it is clean and well
run. I am undecided whether to go up the river for ten days, to where
it crosses the equator, or to leave the upper Congo and go up the Kasai
river. This is off the beaten track, and one may see something of
interest. I will know better what I will do in an hour, when I get to
Matadi.

MATADI--Feby. 21.

We are now at Matadi. The Captain invited us to stop on board and it
is well he did. We dine on deck where the wind blows but the rest of
the ship is being cleaned and painted for the trip North. Four hatches
are discharging cargo all at once, from four in the morning until
midnight. Officers and kroo boys get four hours sleep out of the
twenty-four, but I sleep right through it, so does Cecil. Sometimes
they take out iron rails and then zinc roofs and steel boats, 6000
cases of gin and 1000 tons of coal. Still, it is much better than in
the Hotel Africa on shore. Matadi is a hill of red iron and the heat
is grand. Everything in this country is grand. The river is, in
places, seven miles wide, the sunsets are like nothing earthly, and the
black people are like brooding shadows of lost souls, that is, if souls
have shadows. Most of the blacks in this town are "prisoners" with a
steel ring around the neck, and chained in long lines. I leave on the
23d to go up the Kasai River, because that is where the atrocities come
from and up there there are many missionaries. I don't want you to
think I say this to "calm your fears," but I say it because it is as
true of this place as of every other one in the world, and that is,
that it is as easy to get about here as it is in Rhode Island. It is
not half as dangerous as automobiling. I have not even felt feverish,
neither has Cecil. I never felt better. Cecil stays on board and goes
back to Boma. There she stops a week