In the summer of 2006, I had the opportunity to travel with an expedition to the Republic of Congo. There are many adventures from that particular trip that I could recount. For example, the story of Bob stealing bananas from a little girl. Or, the time my hetero-life-mate, Silent Kevin, fell and injured himself. But, I have already spun the former yarn. And Kevin’s tale is complicated because I am not sure how to spell "coccyx." The story I would like to tell is about descending the Congo into Malebo Pool.
Malebo Pool is a dramatic widening of the already expansive Lower Congo into a mighty lake with a large sandy island. In the days of European colonial hubris, the pool was named for the most successful but assholic of all Explorers of the Dark Continent, Henry Morton Stanley. The upper end of the Pool is little changed from Stanley’s days, and his description is still fitting.
“...the river gradually expanded... which admitted us in view of a mighty breadth of river... Sandy islands rose in front of us like a sea-beach, and on the right towered a long row of cliffs, white and glistening... The grassy table-land above the cliffs appeared as green as a lawn...
The white cliffs on the right descending bank of Malebo Pool.
“While taking an observation at noon of the position, Frank, with my glass in his hand, ascended the highest part of the large sandy dune that had been deposited by the mighty river, and took a survey of its strange and sudden expansion, and after he came back and said, “Why, I declare, sir, this place is just like a pool; as broad as it is long. There are mountains all round it, and it appears to me almost circular.”
“Well, if it is a pool, we must distinguish it by some name. Give me a suitable name for it, Frank.”
“Why not call it Stanley Pool?”
I remember thinking while our motorized pirogue — little fancier than a hollowed-out tree trunk — putted over the smooth, brown water that the Pool must have been a welcomed change for Stanley and his crew from the high, jungle-covered, banks of the river. The travelers must have thought that the worst of their trial was behind them, and it would be an easy glide to the mouth and everlasting fame. The first white people to descend the Congo while trying to find the source of the Nile!
It must have come as quite a disappointment to reach the foot of the Pool and the head of the torrential rapids they called Livingstone Falls. Four hundred miles to go, and Stanley’s own measurements determined that they were still more than 1100 feet above sea level. Stanley’s young companion, Frank Pocock, did not survive the trip. He went over one of the rapids in a pirogue, and the troop found his body a few days later.
And Stanley Pool, the largest monument to the "discoverer," did not survive to see modern maps. Today, Stanley Pool is known as Malebo Pool, and Stanleyville, further up the river, is now called Kinsangani. And Leopoldville, named for King Leopold, is now Kinshasa. The lesson: if you want people to name places in your honor, you probably shouldn’t endeavor to enslave the locals! Brazzaville is still Brazzaville, after all.
In the end, Henry Morton Stanley’s ill-gotten fortune bought him a large house on a little pond in Surry that he could also name Stanley Pool. Bucolic for sure, but somewhat less spectacular.
Stanley Pool in Pirbright, England.
