We crossed the Loange, a deep but narrow stream, by a bridge.
It becomes much larger, and contains hippopotami, lower down.
It is the boundary of Londa on the west. We slept also
on the banks of the Pezo, now flooded, and could not but admire
their capabilities for easy irrigation. On reaching the River Chikapa
(lat. 10d 10' S., long. 19d 42' E.), the 25th of March,
we found it fifty or sixty yards wide, and flowing E.N.E. into the Kasai.
The adjacent country is of the same level nature as that part of Londa
formerly described; but, having come farther to the eastward
than our previous course, we found that all the rivers had worn for themselves
much deeper valleys than at the points we had formerly crossed them.
Surrounded on all sides by large gloomy forests, the people of these parts
have a much more indistinct idea of the geography of their country than those
who live in hilly regions. It was only after long and patient inquiry
that I became fully persuaded that the Quilo runs into the Chikapa.
As we now crossed them both considerably farther down,
and were greatly to the eastward of our first route, there can be no doubt
that these rivers take the same course as the others, into the Kasai,
and that I had been led into a mistake in saying that any of them flowed
to the westward.
