Baringa Beach, Congo, ca. 1900-1915

Black and white lantern slide showing a European missionary and a group of Congolese (dressed in European attire) waving off a two decked steamer at Baringa Beach at the side of the Congo River. A smaller steamer floats alongside. The larger steamer may be the S.S Livingstone, a passenger steamer owned by the Congo Balolo Mission and used on the route between Brazzaville and Kinshasa (formerly Leopoldville) along the Congo River. The smaller vessel alongside may be either the S.S Pioneer or the Evangelist, both single deck steamers owned by the Congo Balolo Mission. The S.S Pioneer was donated by the Young Men's Christian Association Institutes of Ireland, and its parts had to be carried from Matadi to the Upper Congo by Congolese porters before it could be reassembled. 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.