[Illustration: LIONS DRAGGING DOWN A BUFFALO.]
The Lukanga was now explored. Its sluggish, reed-obstructed mouth soon brought the exploring steamer into a splendid lake with village-lined shores. This was Lake Mantumba, 144 miles in circumference. The inhabitants are experts in the manufacture of pottery and camwood powder and carry on a large ivory trade with the Watwa dwarfs.
Stanley then returned to the Congo and continued his downward journey, rescuing in one place the occupants of a capsized canoe; at another giving aid to a struggling Catholic priest on his way to the mouth of the Kwa to establish a mission; trying an ineffectual shot at a lion crouching on the bank and gazing angrily at the flotilla, pursuing its fleeing form, only to stumble on the freshly-slain carcass of a buffalo which the forest-king had stricken down while it was drinking, and at length arriving at Leopoldville, after an absence of 57 days, to find there several new houses, erected by the commandant, Lieut. Valcke, who had also founded the new station of Kinshassa. Where two months before all was wilderness, now fully 500 banana-trees were flourishing, terms of peace had been kept with the whimsical Ngalyema, and the store-rooms of the station were regular banks, that is, they were well stocked with brass rods, the circulating medium of the country.
Stanley remained at Leopoldville for some time, rectifying mischiefs which had occurred at Vivi and Manyanga, and dispatching men and supplies up to Bolobo. Here incidents crowded upon him. Having commissioned a young continental officer to establish a station on the opposite side of the river, the fellow no sooner arrived on the ground than he developed a homicidal mania and shot one of his own sergeants. He was brought back in a tattered and dazed condition and dismissed down the river. Word came of the destruction of a canoe by a gale near the mouth of the Kwa, and the drowning of Lieut. Jansen and twelve people, among whom was Abbé Guyot, the Catholic priest above mentioned. From Kimpoko station came word that a quarrel had broken out there with the natives and that relief must be had. A visit showed the station to have been deserted, and it was destroyed and abandoned. More and more awful grew the situation. A canoe courier brought the harrowing word that Bolobo had been burned, with all the freshly dispatched goods.