ace to the south. With Leopoldville above
and Boma below, still nearer the mouth of the river, Matadi makes a
centre link in the chain of the three important towns of the Lower
Congo.

When Henry M. Stanley was halted by the cataracts and forced to
leave the river he disembarked his expedition on the bank opposite
Matadi, and a mile farther up-stream. It was from this point he
dragged and hauled his boats, until he again reached smooth water at
Stanley Pool. The wagons on which he carried the boats still can be
seen lying on the bank, broken and rusty. Like the sight of old gun
carriages and dismantled cannon, they give one a distinct thrill.
Now, on the bank opposite from where they lie, the railroad runs
from Matadi to Leopoldville.

The Congo forces upon one a great admiration for Stanley. Unless
civilization utterly alters it, it must always be a monument to his
courage, and as you travel farther and see the difficulties placed
in his way, your admiration increases. There are men here who make
little of what Stanley accomplished; but they are men who seldom
leave their own compound, and, who, when they do go up the river,
travel at ease, not in a canoe, or on foot through the jungle, but
in the smoking-room of the steamer and in a first-class railroad
carriage. That they are able so to travel is due to the man they
would belittle. The nickname given to Stanley by the natives is
to-day the nickname of the government. Matadi means rock. When
Stanley reached the town of Matadi, which is surrounded entirely by
rock, he began with dynamite to blast roads for his caravan. The
natives called him Bula Matadi, the Breaker of Rocks, and, as in
those days he was the Government, the Law, and the Prophets, Bula
Matadi, who then was the white man who governed, now signifies the
white man's government. But it is a very different government, and a
very different white man. With the natives the word is universal.
They say "Bula Matadi wood post." "Not traders' chop, Bula Matadi's
chop." "Him no missionary steamer, him Bula Matadi steamer."

The town of Matadi is of importance as the place where, owing to the
rapids, passengers and cargoes are reshipped on the railroad to the
_haut Congo_. It is a railroad terminus only, and it looks it. The
railroad station and store-houses are close to the river bank, and,
spread over several acres of cinders, are the railroad yard and
machine shops. Above those buildings of hot corrugated zinc