The St. Johns herald., 1890-11-20
Kong.

up the Akoa River, Wnlcn nOWs III
 to the Gulf of Guinea, had neve
 been seen by a white man before
 Capt. Blnger, the intrepid French explorer, entered it in February 1888. On the coast there have been for years vague stories of Kong and its people. Mohammedan negroes and Capt. Ringer found that these accounts had more basis than mos of the reports of cities in interior Africa. In his narrative he says:
 Several hours before we reached Kong there were evidences that we were approaching a great center. Everywhere all the timber had been cut down, and the soil, impoverish- ed by long cultivation, was barren. I saw not even a hill anywhere. The Kong Mountain chain, which appears on all the maps, exists on- ly in the imagination of some i'm correctly informed travellers. Soon I saw rising among bombax and palm trees far ahead the minarets on the mosques and the fiat roofs of Kong. As l entered the city, modestly mounted on a steer, 1 saw large crowds of people, who appear ed neither friendly nor hostile, but only eager to see European. The roofs, the trees, the streets, the crossroads were full of people, and I would not have been able to force my way through if the slaves of the chief of Kong had not cleared way for me. They were armed with whips, and vigorously lashed all who Jagged in the path. In chairs under two great trees in the market place were seated, on the right, King Karamokho Oulo and his friends, and on the left DiarawarY, chief of Kong, and his officials. There was perfect silence inthe two groups which I estimated to num- Der about thousand persons. It was an assemblage of the patri- archs, for nearly all were white bearded elderly men. They were fully and neatly dressed in Arab costume, though they are full-blood
 ed negroes. After 1 had successive ly presented myself to the chiefs of the two groups, the King conducted me to his palace, and placed at my disposal some of his attendants who endeavored with only partial success to shield me from public cu- riosity. I confess ss that when I saw Kong, which I was the first to visit, did not feel any of the emotion which some other travellers on the Niger and at Timbuctoo have des- cribed. And yet Kong and its sup posititious mountains have given rise to many hypotheses. Kong is a large unwalled town, whose build ings are of clay, with fiat roofs. It is built in a most irregular manner, and its narrow tortuous streets rad fate from a large place about 700 feet square, which serves as a mar ket. The town has a population of about 15,OO0, ali Mohammedans, and there are five large mosques, surmounted by minarets, and sev- eral others of smaller dimensions. Education is we'll advanced in this region. In Kong there are few men who cannot read. They all write Arabic, are we'll versad in the Ko- ran, and, to my surprise, I found
 that they are not fanatical like the Peuls and Arabs. They recognize three religions, which they call roads-the road of Moses, that of Jesus and that of Mohammed. In conversation upon religious topics no one attempted to demonstrate that Islam was superior to the oth- CT religions. Many of them told me they considered the three reli-