364 THE RELIEF OF EM IN PASHA 



in some dark recess; strong brown-bodied aborigines with terribly 

 sharp spears, standing poised, still as dead stumps; rain pattering 

 down on you every other day in the year ; an impure atmosphere, with 

 its dread consequences, fever and dysentery; gloom throughout the 

 day, and darkness almost palpable throughout the night; and then, if 

 you imagine such a forest extending the entire distance from Plymouth 

 to Peterhead, you will have a fair idea of some of the inconveniences 

 endured by us." 



The last month spent in forcing their way through the forest was 

 a memorable one. The Arabs had devastated the region through 

 which the expedition was now passing; and of inhabitants, and, con- 

 sequently, of food, there was no trace. In their feeble condition this 

 was even worse than active hostility. The fungi, the wild fruits — 

 especially a large bean-shaped nut — formed the staple of food — food 

 that had to be sought and found and gathered in great quantity before 

 it could satisfy the pangs of the famished people. 



At length Stanley reached the district of Ibwiri, and at the same 

 time the eastern limit of the great forest. The joy with which the 

 whole expedition hailed the open grassy country which lay before 

 them was unbounded. The forest — which, according to Stanley, 

 covers an area of at least a quarter of a million square miles, or, in 

 other words, five times the area of England — had oppressed them with 

 its gloom, had fostered the fever and ague, the dysentery and other ills 

 from which they had suffered so greatly, and had sheltered the relent- 

 less savages who dogged their every step. Now at Ibwiri their suffer- 

 ings terminated for a time. 



"Ourselves and men," wrote Stanley to Sir William Mackinnon, 

 "were skeletons. Out of 389 we now only numbered 174, several of 

 whom seemed to have no hope of life left. . . . The suffering had 

 been so awful, calamities so numerous, the forest so endless apparently, 

 that they refused to believe that by and by we should' see plains and 

 cattle, and the Nyanza, and the white man, Emin Pasha. They turned 

 a deaf ear to our prayers and entreaties, for, driven by hunger and 

 suffering, they sold their rifles and equipments for a few ears of Indian 

 corn, deserted with the amnninition, and were altogether demoral- 

 ized'. . . . We halted thirteen days in Ibwiri, and reveled on 



