African river crossed initially on journey (5)
I believe the answer is:
congo
'african river' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'crossed initially on journey' is the wordplay.
'initially' indicates taking the first letters.
'journey' becomes 'go' (I've seen this in other clues).
The initial letter of 'crossed' is 'c'.
'c'+'on'+'go'='CONGO'
(Other definitions for congo that I've seen before include "Crazily entertaining" , "African river flowing into the South Atlantic" , "Central African region" , "tea" , "African river also called Zaire" .)