Vessel of Last Resort

One area of misfortune that he first encounters is while he is in the city. In his visit through the city, he describes various details painting an ugly picture of the city that from a distance “had looked so prosperous, with its skyscrapers and dock cranes.” However, he discovers that the city up close is “a farrago of squalor and raucous mayhem.” The street as a multilane Boulevard is filled with “the ulcerous, emaciated bodies of those too weak to beg,” while, in contrast, “silver Mercedes rocketed through the rubble carrying their owners to hush-hush diamond deals in posh Gombe.” The “living dead” of Kinshasa symbolize the city’s state as “

While the city itself was a site, Tayler was all too excited as the boat left headed toward the equator, “and we were free from Kinshasa’s stench.” However excited he was to have been freed from the stench his journey was only just beginning. He says how the government itself made changes from a dictatorship to a democracy, explaining the tragedies there in Kinshasa. Since this “transition” the economy has collapsed and the national transportation company is now bankrupt, thus the barge itself though functioning, lacked ”even the skeletal amenities (rat-infested cabins, clogged toilets, starchy food).” So, for thirty dollars you could get a space on the “rusty steel deck and no more.” Even the Zairians wondered, “What misfortune could have driven me to take the barge,” and expatriates met said that, “such crafts were not for non-Zairians.” After speaking with different people that had been on such barges in Kinshasa and hearing their experiences the dread of the harsh circumstances are replaced with fear and adventure, much like a competition to see just exactly who could make it to Kisangani. A pastor, who was along for the ride wasn’t very comforting in saying, “when cholera breaks out onboard people just die and they throw the bodies overboard.” Next to add his two cents enlightened him of the last tourist to take a barge to Kinsangani had just arrived, but dead of malaria. His feelings on those notes were somewhat surprising in that he was not bothered all that much by these warnings of disease and dreadful conditions. In fact, he was a little intrigued by this and wanted still to take this voyage the whole way and learn more about the Congo. The three previous years in Russia had given him the desire to escape the cold and break out of the “gray-bureaucracy syndrome” having a lot to do with his thoughts’ “running Equatorward.” Another reason for his thoughts running that way was because of a British explorer and his journey down the Congo. It was after being mesmerized by Henry Morton Stanley’s account th

Some topics in this essay:
Morton Stanley’s, Congo River, Jeffery Tayler, , smoked fish monkey, smoked fish, “vessel resort”, fish monkey,