Iron boat, cycles etc. en route Ngombe, Congo, ca. 1900-1915

Black and white lantern slide showing an iron boat with a thatched canopy. Ten Congolese men stand in the boat, which is moored to the bank, with wooden poles to propel the vessel. Two bicycles stand on the bank, along with water bottles and supplies. The rowers wear shorts and shirts, or are bare-chested. Some wear hats that ressemble pith helmets. The slide is captioned: "Iron boat, cycles &c. En route Ngombe." Ngombe-speaking peoples were feared by those of other ethnicities and missionaries alike as fierce warriors and cannibals. According to an 1891 account by Harry Grattan Guinness, he and Congo Balolo Mission pioneer John McKittrick had to run for their lives from a Ngombe village after it was revealed that they were to be killed. This slide comes from a collection generated by missionaries working for the Congo Balolo Mission, a mission begun in 1889 under the supervision of the East London Training Institute for Home and Foreign Missions that developed into the interdenominational evangelical mission Regions Beyond Missionary Union after 1900.