72 



THE CENTRAL PROVINCE 



and frequentlv impaling antl })ulling them in to the rocky ledge. White 

 egrets and black cormorants stand on every pinnacle of rock across the 

 falls with the same object of seizing fish. 



From the heights of Bugungu, above the river and below the falls, a 

 glorious landscape is made up of green forest fading into purple (near 

 the foregroimd the rich green wild date palms are brightened by their 

 bunches of orange dates), and of a blue-grey river with beryl-green 

 reflections breaking into snow-white foam (a faint spray drifts across the 



6l. THE RIPOX FALLS, FROM BUGUNGU 



sun-lit vegetation like blue smoke), and then spreading away in the 

 foreground into a yellowish turmoil with creamy crests and nut-brown 

 hollows. Over all is a sky of pale azure, across which cloudlets nearly as 

 white as the foam of the falls slowly travel before the lake breeze. Here 

 and there on the opposite bank, where the ground is not green with the 

 richest vegetation the bare rock or soil gives a pleasant warm touch of 

 reddish ochre to a scheme of colour which might otherwise be too 

 monotonously blue, green, and white. If you include a foreground where 

 the Bugungu downs overhang the foaming de})ths, there is long grass, with 

 a silky s^heen and bright mauve and yellow flowers, while the many birds 

 and butterflies give flashes of light and colour as they flit to and fro. 



