CHAPTER XIV 



THE GREA'l' RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO 



" 'J'hk region of which 1 speak is a dreary reoion in 

 Libya, by the borders of the River Zaire. And there, 

 is no quiet there nor silence. The waters of the river 

 have a saffron hue, and for many miles on either side of 

 the river's oozy bed is a pale desert of gigantic water- 

 hhes . . . and I stood in the morass among tiie tall 

 Ulies, and the lilies sighed one unto the other in the 

 solemnity of their desolation. And all at once the 

 moon arose through the thin, ghastly mist, and was 

 crimson in colour. . . . And the man looked out upon 

 the dreary River Zaire, and upon the yellow, ghastly 

 waters, and upon the pale legions of the water-lilies. . . . 

 Then I went down into the recess of the morass, and 

 waded afar in among the wilderness of the lilies, and 

 called unto the hippojiotami which dwelt among the 

 fens in the recesses of the morass." I was reading Poe, 

 on the banks of the Upper Nile ; and surely his " fable " 

 does deserve to rank witli the '' tales in the \'olumes of 

 the Magi — in the ironbound, melancholy volumes of the 

 Magi." 



We had come down through the second of the great 

 Nvanza lakes. As we sailed northward, its waters 

 stretched behind us, beyond the ken of vision, to where 

 they were fed by streams from the Mountains of the 



