Wadelat and the Motitk of the Albert Lake. 1 1 1 excellent for making soap and for machines. It may be calculated that one hippopotamus would furnish in fat 50 to 60 per cent, of its own weight, and this oil would be valuable to commerce.

The tusks of the hippopotamus were at one time more valuable than ivory, as they were used for making artificial teeth, but their price has much diminished since a new composition was discovered, which is used instead.

The female hippopotamus is fierce and terrible when she has her young ones, and then becomes very dangerous to the natives, who hunt her, for she attacks the boats furiously, and upsets them. The hippopotamus, from which a man can easily escape on land, his enormous weight and short legs not allowing him to pursue his enemy, is more agile in the water than can be imagined. The little hippopotami, in order to cross a river against the stream, climb on their mother's back. The stretch of river between Dufile and Bira is wide and deep, and this is, as I think, the best part to be met with above Berber.

On the banks one sees many and populous villages ; cattle are abundant, and the inhabitants enjoy an affluence the like of Avhich I never saw in other parts of Central Africa. Doora is little cultivated, if at all, and bananas cut, dried, and ground, supply the place of corn ; but a kind of French bean is cultivated, and sweet potatoes in great quantity. Chickens and eggs are at a low price : for fifteen beads the men of the crew could get a copious repast.

Some Arab or Congolese slave-merchants pushed their raids as far as here across the river in former times. But this was only in a fcAV isolated cases.

March 17th. — A light breeze carried us along the territory of the Langos. The Anllages became more frequent, and I counted twenty-seven in the space of two miles. The land on both sides is elevated, and fertility seems to reign everywhere. I am in