212 In the Heart of Africa 



tall Lobelia giberroa Hemsl., were particularly noticeable. The 

 Cynoglossum family, with their cerulean flowers, which were 

 vividly reminiscent of forget-me-nots (they are so called in 

 Stuhlmann's report), were very prevalent, and also yellow ever- 

 lastings, with large and small heads, plants which are met with 

 everywhere in the lower mountain region. A little farther up 

 there was bamboo, amongst which the fine big sapotaceous tree of 

 the Bugoie forest, the ' mutoie ' {Sideroxylon Adolf, Fnederici 

 Engl.), was to be met with. 



" On the evening of this day we discussed the question of 

 how we should continue the advance. The Congolese had first 

 promised us as guide a white non-commissioned officer, who 

 had once escorted a Belgian officer as far as the snow ; then 

 it was to have been a black sergeant, who had made the same 

 excursion, but they had left us beautifully in the lurch. As 

 a whole, the route had been sketched out for us, but as to the 

 details regarding favourable division of marches, possibilities 

 of encampment and of finding water, etc., we knew nothing. 

 In any case, we wished to establish a fixed camp, and as we 

 had descried, at no great distance, a thick, finely-grown forest, 

 we decided to march thither the next morning and pitch a camp 

 to serve as a centre to our collecting expeditions. The path 

 first led into a deep, cleft-like valley, through which a spring 

 of cystal-clear, ice-cold water flowed. Then for a time we 

 had to climb up again steeply, and came upon a clearing, 

 luxuriant with plants and bushes, passably level, which appeared 

 to be extremely suitable for our purpose. 



" We found ourselves now on the lower part of a long ridge- 

 like stretch of mountain, which led up to great heights by a 

 fairly regular gradient, and which Stuhlmann had also climbed. 

 As it was still early in the day, Schubotz and I, in order to 

 take our bearings, went up on the crest to which a very narrow 

 but tolerably good path led us. Through mixed growths of 

 thickly-foliaged timber and bamboo, at an altitude of about 

 3,000 metres, we reached the 'sub-alpine' region of the ericacecB, 

 which, similarly to the ' alpine ' formation of the tree-like 



