To appreciate what Boma lacks one has only to visit the neighboring seaports on the same coast; the English towns of Sierra Leone and Calabar, the French town of libreville in the French Congo, the German seaport Duala in the Cameroons, but especially Calabar in Southern Nigeria.
"The Congo and Coasts of Africa"
Richard Harding Davis
So we could but up anchor and proceed to libreville, formerly the capital of the French Congo.
"The Congo and Coasts of Africa"
Richard Harding Davis
In the French Congo the natives are permitted to trade; in the Congo Free State they are not, or, rather, they have nothing with which to trade, and the contrast between the empty "factories" of the Congo and those of libreville, crowded with natives buying and selling, was remarkable.
"The Congo and Coasts of Africa"
Richard Harding Davis