ROOSEJ'ELT'S JOVRNRY FROM UGANDA DOWN THE NILE 420 



It is not our purpose to describe the hunting adventures of the 

 Roosevelt party in Uganda, that country which has been described as 

 *'the wildest and most beautiful, perhaps the most dangerous, and 

 certainly the most interesting of those explored." These adventures 

 were of the type of those already described. They consisted in wan- 

 dering through the wilds, the constant crack of the rifle, the fall of 

 fresh victims of the hunter's skill. To detail them would be but a 

 repetition of the story of the past chapters, and of these hunting 

 exploits "by flood and fell" our readers have already had a sufUciency. 

 We shall therefore pass over these experiences and pass at once from 

 Kampala to where the waters of the great lake rush down the slope of 

 Ripon Falls to give birth to the noble Nile. Down that historic stream 

 our journey now leads. 



To go "on safari" down the Nile was an experience very different 

 from that which the expedition had yet passed through. It had hith- 

 erto enjoyed the cool air of a high plateau, high even at the Victoria 

 Nyanza, which is nearly four thousand feet above sea level. Before 

 reaching the Albert Nyanza, about two hundred miles distant, more 

 than one-third of its height had disappeared and our travelers found 

 themselves approaching the steaming and enervating temperature of 

 the true tropics. 



On went the long caravan, the colored porters gay and lively in 

 the early hours of the day, but with sober mien and dragging steps 

 as hot noontide burned above them. Native paths led through the 

 dense woodland, now along a level stretch, now up or down hill, and 

 whites and blacks alike were glad enough to reach the "bandas," or 

 rest houses, which awaited them at intervals along the trail, built by 

 the authorities for the convenience of the growing tide of travel. 



Day after day this was repeated; an early start, a long tramp, a 

 rest during the hot hours of the day, with food provided by the chiefs 

 of the country traversed and duly paid for by the travelers. Of course 

 the Rooseveltians did not fail to turn aside to view the remarkable 

 Murchison Falls, in which the whole flood of the Nile forces itself 

 through an aperture less than twenty feet wide, plunging one hundred 

 and sixty feet downward with a roar loud enough to awake the echoes 

 miles away. 



