to its junction with the Mbomou River. Roget, Milz and Duvivier founded the first Belgian post in the Uele at Djabir in April 1890. This route opened access to the Uele region, although it crossed the territory of the Budja people, who had yet to be pacified. In 1891 Guillaume Van Kerkhoven, and Jules Milz followed the same route to the Uele, then explored the Kibali and the Zoro. They reached the Nile, but had to retreat to the Dungu region when they were attacked by Mahdists. In 1891 Georges Le Marinel ascended the Bomu River. Ernest De Baert was appointed State Inspector of the Haut-Uele expedition in 1892. He was instructed to ensure that all the ivory and rubber of the sultanates of the M’bomu region was paid as tribute to the Free State. By 1892 the Belgians were taking drastic action to prevent ivory and rubber from being smuggled across the M'Bomu to French Territory. They stationed soldiers in each marketplace who shot anyone who tried to cross the river. However, these efforts were ineffective and much ivory from Uele reached the European companies in Abiras. The Uele was clearly a natural defensive line for the north of the Congo Free State, and the forests along it would provide a source of food. The authorities decided to build a line of fortified positions along the river. Posts included Yakoma in the Ubangi District, Djabir, Libokwa, Bambili, Surango, Niangara, Dungu and Faradje. Later these posts were connected by the first road in the Congo Free State that could be used by motor vehicles, which was extended from Faradje to the Nile by way of Yei and Loka in the savannah zone. The two posts of Yei and Loka were established to the northeast of Faradje in the arid Lado Enclave on the Nile, leased from the British. The Belgians carried a boat to the Nile in sections, the Van de Kerckhoven, which they assembled and launched on the Nile. In 1894 Léon Hanolet ascended the Bari River, a right tributary of the Bomu while Théodore Nilis and Charles de la Kethulle ascended the Chinko River, another tributary of the Bomu. The Belgian expeditions caused a dispute with the French that led to an agreement that the Bomu would be the northern border of the Congo Free State in this region. Another route to the Uele went from Basoko up