Scenery at Kigezi 



stand on the ridge in the soft, cool air and watch 

 the numerous hills, looking dark and mysterious 

 with the low-lying clouds suggestive of conceal- 

 ment, compelling one's wondering curiosity to gaze 

 in a lingering desire to search this veiled unknown. 

 Nature is ever the same — curiosity coupled with 

 unfulfilled desire ! How it works on our sensitive 

 imaginations, leading us into the most excessive 

 acts of folly in a vain search after visionary delights. 

 Yet this same view, seen a couple of hours later, 

 when the powerful rays of a tropical sun have 

 penetrated and driven away the early shadows of 

 the morning — what a change ! This landscape 

 presents an open, smiling countenance, suggestive 

 of naught else but everlasting prosperity and con- 

 tent, a complete stranger to trouble and care, 

 stretching itself in lazy indolence to the cloudless 

 horizon. Towards evening it will present yet 

 another phase ; probably the soft air will have 

 given way to a cold wind, the sun, weakening in 

 its fall, will assume a ruddy appearance till it has 

 sunk behind an opaque mass of nimbus clouds. 

 The aspect of the smiling plain will be lined by 

 the dark shadows of the now threatening hills. The 

 horizon will be black with heavy, mantling clouds, 

 which are creeping over the jagged outlines of 

 the distant hills, nearer and nearer, as the storm 

 approaches in its overwhelming fury. Is it to be 

 wondered at, then, that Nature and her effects are 

 the sole things on this earth which can never 

 cease to fire the imagination of man ? and add 



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