That they are able so to travel is due to the man they
would belittle. The nickname given to Stanley by the natives is
to-day the nickname of the government. Matadi means rock. When
Stanley reached the town of Matadi, which is surrounded entirely by
rock, he began with dynamite to blast roads for his caravan. The
natives called him Bula Matadi, the Breaker of Rocks, and, as in
those days he was the Government, the Law, and the Prophets, Bula
Matadi, who then was the white man who governed, now signifies the
white man's government. But it is a very different government, and a
very different white man. With the natives the word is universal.
They say "Bula Matadi wood post." "Not traders' chop, Bula Matadi's
chop." "Him no missionary steamer, him Bula Matadi steamer."
The town of Matadi is of importance as the place where, owing to the
rapids, passengers and cargoes are reshipped on the railroad to the
_haut Congo_. It is a railroad terminus only, and it looks it. The
railroad station and store-houses are close to the river bank, and,
spread over several acres of cinders, are the railroad yard and
machine shops. Above those buildings of hot corrugated zinc and the
black soil rises a great rock. It is not so large as Gibraltar, or
so high as the Flatiron Building, but it is a little more steep than
either. Three narrow streets lead to its top. They are of flat
stones, with cement gutters. The stones radiate the heat of stove
lids.
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