Category: Sir Alan Donald

Sir Alan Donald recounts a disaster of a trip up the Congo to visit the diamond mines at Mbuji-Mayi.

see the YouTube video here

On another memorable trip, we went to Mbuji Maya to inspect some diamond mines at the invitation of de Beers.  A young man was deputed by the company to act as our host and guide for the weekend. The programme envisaged a trip by boat up the river from Mbuji Maya to visit the area where the diamonds were being dug, a night in the camp there and a return by the river to Mbuji Maya before flying  back to Kinshasa.  We arrived at the place safely and on time at about noon on the Friday. To our dismay, we were told that the Mayor of the city wished to honour us with a lunch. It was nearly 3 o’clock before we got away from lunch and went to the jetty.  The young man from de Beers had organized two inflatable rubber dinghies.  We thought we were going to travel on a river steamboat in the style of Joseph Conrad. It was not to be.

We watched in awe as these two inflatable dinghies with outboard motors went roaring up and down the waterway.  I asked what was going on.  The guide said they were just testing the engines.  This was rather an ominous start.  We piled into one of the dinghies and the other was loaded with our baggage and we proceeded up the river. 

   By this time it was between 3:30 and 4pm, and I asked about the length of our journey.   I was told it was about 50 miles. I did some quick calculations and worked out to travel this distance in a dinghy would take several hours and darkness always fell promptly at 6 o’clock.  I began to have grave doubts about this whole expedition.

   About half an hour up stream on the Lualaba river, we gradually became aware that our boat was starting to leak and in danger of sinking.  The second boat was summoned and in the middle of the stream the luggage was put on our dinghy and we transferred ourselves rather perilously into the baggage dinghy.  As we proceeded up stream, we could see coming towards us the father and mother of a thunderstorm. A thunderstorm in Africa has to be seen to be believed. The sky was dark, lit with flashes of lightening and it began to get really gloomy. 

    We got through the torrential rain all right, but we then lost touch with the second boat with all our belongings on board. It must have pulled into the bank to effect the necessary repairs. We found ourselves in the single dinghy proceeding alone.  It was getting darker and darker because of the storm, and also because night was falling. 

Round about 6 o’clock we found ourselves getting into shallower water and it was clear that we were now on a much smaller waterway than the main river.  I asked the de Beers man if he was familiar with the river. “No”, he answered, “As a matter of fact, this is my first visit too”.  I turned to one of the Zairian crew and asked if he was familiar with this stretch of water. “ Oh yes” he said, “ I know it like the back of my hand”.  It became painfully obvious that he didn’t, because within a few minutes we were stranded on a sand or reed bank in the middle of this narrowing tributary.  We asked if the boat had provisions or equipment of any kind for use in emergency. We discovered that it did not.  They had assumed that they would travel the 50 miles in a couple of hours.  Fortunately, Janet had got anti mosquito cream, fresh water and, most important of all, a bottle of whisky.  So we hauled the dinghy up onto what appeared to be the bank of the river (which actually turned out to be a floating island). Janet settle down in the middle with a man either side of her to keep her warm. We plied ourselves with whisky and tried to sleep.  It was pretty awful in the darkness with the mosquitoes. During the night we heard a hippopotamus stamping beside us through the reeds into the water. 

       In the morning there was a miraculous vision. As we looked out over the river, we could see a bank of fog just above the water level.  Gliding down it with only the only the head and shoulders above the mist were one or two fisherman in their small canoes. It was rather mystical.  We couldn’t attract their attention and I don’t think it would have done much good if we had. 

 We eventually got back into our own boat and decided we must retrace our path. It was quite clear in the daylight that we had come adrift terribly the night before and were on a tributary of the big river.  We went back down the river and located the main stream.  We turned right upstream again and continued forging up the river. It was then that the man who “knew the river like the back of his hand” announced that we were running out of petrol. If we didn’t land, we would be stranded in the middle of the river with no means of power.  We spotted a small hut on the bank. We were able to get to the bank, anchor the dinghy, and clamber out. The fisher family who were roasting or baking fish in an oven made out of an old oil drum offered us food, which we cravenly declined. The fisherman was badgered into shinning up a tree to knock down what we thought was a coconut, which we hoped to eat for breakfast. Sadly it was not edible. We sat on the bank wondering what we should do next.

 Janet and I thought that if we had not seen any sign of any help by midday we should get into the dinghy and float down stream using the current to get us back to where we started, some 20 or 30 miles away.  At 5 minutes to 12, just when we were going to act on this manly decision,we heard this “putt, putt, putt” of an outboard motor and saw the second dinghy coming towards us downstream.  It had passed us in the night, reached the diamond mine, not found us there and had come back to find us.

    They happily had some petrol and we could therefore continue our journey, arriving at the camp at about dusk.  To our horror, the Zairians announced that we had to leave next morning at crack of dawn as there was another banquet waiting for us downstream 50 miles away.  At about this time, Janet and I became irritable and said we had not come all this way to turn round and go back again: we would spend the night there, look at the mines in the morning and go down at leisure, either the next evening or even the day after.

  This was rather grumpily agreed to and we went to sleep in hammocks in a tent.  There were mosquito nets, but when we got up in the morning we found there was an army of huge brown ants tramping through the tent. As I got out of my hammock, ants climbed up my trousers. It was a most unnerving and disagreeable experience.  However we did return safely by river to Mbuji Maya and thence to Kinshasa, sadder and wiser and thankful to get home.

Sir Alan Donald reminisces about meeting the Pygmies and the Kolwezi Massacre during his time as British Ambassador in the Congo

See the YouTube video here