 Bula Matari translates as "Breaker of Rocks" or "Breakstones" in Kongo and was Stanley's name among locals in Congo.It can be translated as a term of endearment for, as the leader of Leopold's expedition, he commonly worked with the labourers breaking rocks with which they built the first modern road along the Congo River.Author Adam Hochschild suggested that Stanley understood it as a heroic epithet, but there is evidence that Nsakala, the man who coined it, had meant it humorously.