The
entrance was guarded by a sentinel and gun, and the "king,"
Imondo, lay right royally on his belly. A fine plantation of
bananas divides the settlement, and the background is dense bush,
in which they say "Nyare" and deer abound. The Bakele supply
sheep and fowls to the Plateau, and their main industry consists
in dressing plantain-fibre for thread and nets.
We now reach the confluence of the Nkonio or north-eastern, with
the Mbokwe, or eastern branch, which anastomose to form the
Gaboon; the latter, being apparently the larger of the two,
preserves the title Mpolo. Both still require exploration; my
friend M. Braouezzec, Lieutenant de Vaisseau, who made charts of
the lower bed, utterly failed to make the sources; and the Rev.
Mr. Preston, who lived seven months in the interior, could not
ascend far. Mr. W. Winwood Reade reached in May, 1862, the rapids
of the Nkomo River, but sore feet prevented his climbing the
mountain, which he estimates at 2,000 feet, or of tracing the
stream to its fountain. Mr. R.B.N. Walker also ascended the Nkomo
for some thirty miles, and found it still a large bed with two
fathoms of water in the Cacimbo or "Middle dries.
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