see the buoys and we reach Leopoldville soon after 6 p.m. We have
arranged to dine at the Mess, an excellent institution wherein all the
Europeans of every rank, except the very highest officials, sit down
together. The Commandant of the Force Publique, the Commandant of the
Port, the Directors of Transports and Posts, and the Doctors, all
take their dinner with the working artisans. Altogether about 130 men
attend the mess, where the cooking and service is excellent while each
has a small bottle of wine and a cup of coffee. By this means, every man
is ensured good wholesome food, and the necessity of restaurants, in
which indiscriminate drinking might take place, is avoided.

Next morning, July 23rd. the _Flandre_ leaves Leopoldville and steams to
Kinshasa where we stop and land. Here as usual the keynote is
development. Roads are being made, avenues of palms, mangoes and pine
apples planted and store houses, factories and plantations constructed.
At the coffee factory here, the beans are extracted from the shells,
sorted into sizes and qualities and packed in bags. Many kinds of coffee
have been planted in the Congo, but none are equal to the wild variety
found in the forest, which is as good as any in the world when properly
made. Near at hand is a brick field, where the bricks are made in metal
moulds, the clay being forced in by long levers. They are not made as
quickly as those fashioned by a machine but the process is a great
improvement on the old-fashioned method of brick making in wooden
moulds. It is already apparent that beer is regarded as a luxury here so
we order some dozens at three francs a bottle and having taken some
photos return to the ship.

On the beach were some fine elephant tusks which have been collected by
the agents of the _Société Anonyme Belge_. When a native finds a pair of
tusks in the territory of the company, the State takes one as a royalty