70 [No. 99 ECONOMIC CONDITIONS (2 ) EXTERNAL (a) Seaports The River Congo has but one mouth , which widens out immediately within the entrance and forms Banana Harbour. The depth of water in the harbour is 5 fathoms, and safe anchorage, protected from all winds, is afforded for vessels of large displacement.

It is entered by a somewhat narrow channel between two sandbanks , visible at low tide. Vessels of 19 ft. draught have no difficulty in entering this channel. The Customs Stations, Government buildings, and houses of the business firms are situated amongst coco-nut palms upon a narrow sandspit between the harbour and the sea. Banana might be developed into a considerable port of call.

The estuary at places is 15 to 17 miles wide, with the great depth of 70 to 900 ft. in mid-channel. This deep trough , increasing in depth to 4,000 ft ., is carried west-north -west outside the river's mouth through a shallow coastal sea for some 120 miles, till it merges in the ocean depths, and all this distance the current and the fresh water of the mighty river are still dis cernible .

Boma, on the right bank, 60 miles up the wide estuary, is the administrative capital of the colony and the port for the Mayumbe region, with which it is connected by railway. There are two steel piers, having 23 and 17 feet of water off them at low tide, but there are no shipbuilding facilities.

Matadi is nearly a hundred miles from the coast , at the head of the lower Congo, on the left bank of the river, close to Stanley's old camp of Vivi, immediately below the last cataract. Ocean-going vessels ascend to Matadi, which is the port for the whole of the interior, and is served only by a single