104 VISIT TO THE SAMBA NAGOSHI FALLS. Chap. V. 



and crossing several streams which here enter the 

 Ngouyai, some of them so deep that my companions 

 had to swim across and cut down a tree that I miglit 

 scramble over, for it was very important tliat the 

 instrmiients I carried with me should not get 

 wetted. At last we could get along no further by 

 the river margin, and had to ascend the bank into the 

 forest, through which we continued our way to the 

 Fougamou, or principal Falls. 



We walked through the jungle for about three 

 quarters of an hour, with the roar of the cataract 

 constantly within hearing, so that I conjectured there 

 was more than one fall. At length we emerged on 

 the brink of the stream, and saw before us a broad 

 seething torrent, madly rushing down between steep 

 and rocky banks with deafening roar. It was not a 

 cataract, but a torrent pf fearful velocity and grand 

 proportions, leaping in huge billows, as though 

 the Mdiole of the water of the river droj^ped into 

 a chasm and bounded out again, over ridges of 

 rock ; the scene was rendered more magnificent 

 by the luxuriant tropical foliage of the banks, and 

 the steep hills rising on each side, and clothed to 

 their summits with glorious forest. The width of the 

 stream was not so great as at Luba, and the torrent 

 roared along one mass of foam as far as the eye 

 could reach. 



My Aviia guide now informed me that he had 

 mistaken the path througli the forest, and that this 

 was not the Fougamou. It was, in fact, the torrent 

 below the Falls. We had to retrace our steps, ascend- 

 ing the steep declivity, and after a scramble along the 



