renfell and Dr.
Button, of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, who is here
studying the Sleeping Sickness. Everyone we meet who has travelled in
other countries and also visited the Congo, is astonished at the
wonderful development of the place. It is indeed becoming more and more
apparent that the State has gone ahead very fast and that the stress has
been great, both for Europeans and natives. Probably, now the machine is
fairly set rolling, it will proceed more steadily in the future.

Next day we decide to leave the _Flandre_ and stay for a week or so at
Coquilhatville. Commandant Ankstroem, the Adjoint Superieur to the
Commissaire, kindly lends us his house and we at once move in, glad to
leave the mosquitoes of the river and to sleep in a room once more.
Everything in the house and garden is scrupulously clean and tidy,
characteristics which I may add were found in nearly every Post and
house in the whole country. The sanitary arrangements are the
perfection of simplicity. There are no drains, but simple receptables
which are emptied and cleaned every morning while carbolic acid is used
liberally. This admirable system is carried out in every Post, however
large or small, and I never once found it unobserved. The natives
themselves are also very cleanly in their habits, so that although the
heat is great and decomposition proceeds very rapidly, bad smells are
absolutely unknown. Near the residency is a well kept farm and the
mutton tasted particularly nice after the diet of goat on the steamer.

The effect of the climate on my digestion is curious. In Europe all
forms of starch and sugar give me indigestion and I have therefore to
avoid bread, potatoes, jam, sugar and kindred substances. Here however,
I have a craving for these things and never have indigestion. I mention
this personal trait, because many other travellers in the tropics have
often stated that they could march on rice and jam for days without
desiring meat of any kind. No doubt the system is working at, so to
speak, high pressure, but it is curious that a complete change in one's
idiosyncrasies should take place even in the first month.

On August 5th the _Flandre_ proceeds up the river, and we bid farewell
to our travelling companions, who seem to have become old friends in the
last six weeks. Everyone, is always most kind and courteous, and not
only gives every information, but also the benefit of his experience,
and thus affords much va