We reached Thysville last night at around 6:00 pm - Just in time to get settled in before dark which falls soon after. The last part of the line before Thysville is again through mountainous country but very wooded and thus contrasts with the ruggedness of those along Matadi. We saw some wonderful expanses of hills; tier upon tier against a background of blue mountains on the sky line.
The line takes some remarkable curves here: in one place making a complete S bend - almost a figure of 8 where the train goes about a mile and advances just 50 yards or so: all the energy being spent on getting to a higher level.
Thysville lies 2,400 feet above the sea and is about 120 miles from Matadi (100 feet above sea approximately) this gives some idea of the climb up.
We have put up at the Mission at Thysville. Mrs Jennings is a most charming hostess and did everything for our comfort. I went into the little church adjoining the mission houses to see the organ given by the Ropeholders to the station.
We have another early rise tomorrow so we retired early. I shared a bedroom in the visitors house with Rev. Davis. During the night a rat ran off with our candle! Fortunately he made so much noise under the bed whilst devouring it that we were able to rescue it and place it and the soap in one of our trunks for safety. He also visited Rev. Davies bed but gave me the cold shoulder! Rev. Davies assures me in all his experience of the Congo this is the first time he has come into such close contact with rats! One very quickly gets used to these little interruptions however and does not mind them.
Thysville is a large railway centre and has many sidings and sheds as one of the smaller railway centres of some of the home railways.
It is a mark of Congo's development.
On our railway journey we passed some modern cement factory in the course of construction in a native village called Lukala. Germans are said to be assisting in the work: anyway the enterprise is is worthy of them and this is but another illustration of the opening up of Congo's resources.
We bought some bananas and other fruit on the way. A huge bunch of bananas - as much as one of us could manage to carry for 2p!
We left Thysville railway station at 7:00 am and continued our journey much as we did yesterday. Yesterday was cloudy and cool: today is sunny and warmer but not oppressive. In Congo we welcome a cool day as much as we appreciate a sunny day at home.
Thysville is rather more than half way: thus we reached Kinshasa at 4:30 pm. Three Ford lorries were at the station to convey our luggage (and some of the men folk too) to the RMS station where we cleansed, fed and rested ourselves.
The cleansing was not so lengthy a matter as we had been led to expect from reports of other travellers who had warned us about the "minor horrors" of the Congo railway. Indeed old travellers on our train confessed they had never had a more expeditious journey or one more free from dirt - "why" said Rev. Palmer "not even one of us had any of our clothes damages by hot wood cinders or coal from the engine!" The railway burns coal as long as it lasts and then wood. As a consequence frequently the train does not reach Thysville till long after dark.
Kinshasa is a large modern city and contains the advantages and disadvantages of a large centre of civilisation attracting to it a great numbers of natives from all parts of the colony and beyond. It is to many an African family away up country what London was to the country families of England in the Victorian era: The place where a few do well but the majority degenerate.
The city is divided into two parts - white and black living in separate areas: A large park will eventually separate these two parts. A good deal of shipping is done and motor cars and lorries are used in land transport. The roads however are nowhere metalled and consist, even in the centre of the town, of dusty (in this dry season) ways - in places little better than farm tracks.
Kinshasa everywhere presents the appearance of being unfinished coupled with the burnt out look due to the dry season the irregular distribution of houses and trading concerns gives a staggering and untidy affect to the city.
But good buildings and electric light compensate for lot when daylight ends at 6 PM every day. There are said to be 1000 white people in Kinshasa of which 3 to 400 are Portuguese. I am told the African native does not always regard a Portuguese as a white man because he is careless of his appearance and lives much more like a native does.
A white man who does not shave and he wears dirty clothes is called a Portuguese regardless of whatever nationality he may be.
Kinshasa is about 800 feet above sea level, the Congo river drops 700 feet between here and Matadi - a distance of some 200 odd miles. At present we are nearing the end of dry season, this is the cool season when the rains begin the atmosphere becomes so charged with moisture that the body has difficulty in getting rid of its perspiration by evaporation as ordinary and this makes the wet humid season the hot and trying one.
The dry cool season corresponds roughly to the English summer and the wet hot one to our own winter, this applies to some extent at Yakusu (the seasons are much less marked at Yakusu as it is in the indeterminate region as far as climate is concerned. Rain occurs at Yakusu routinely all year round but the hot season conforms to southern hemisphere rules.)
also though Kinshasa and Yakusu are on opposite sides of the equator - this is because the heat Equator i.e. line of greatest heat is a good deal north of the geographical one running through the Sahara desert, the rain Equator is also north of the geographical one so that the seasons of both Kinshasa and Yakusu correspond to the world's southern hemisphere and not to the northern where Yakusu really is.
