Through the Semliki Valley 213 



senecio and stalk lobelia, nowhere in the African alps attains 

 so prodigious a development as on Ruwenzori. 



" On our way the vegetation was formed chiefly of Erica arborea. 

 The younger specimens are almost like juniper shrubs ; the older 

 are tree-like, four metres or more high, with knotted stems and 

 very bent and twisted boughs, which bear at their ends, in small, 

 compact masses, the tiny-leafed, deep blue blooms. The stems 

 and boughs are thickly covered with cushions of mosses and liver- 

 v/ort, and big, flabby, jelly-like patches of tree-moss, also the 

 long, grey beard-moss of the Usnea family. The whole effect, 

 especially when mists are gathering, gives a very weird and 

 unsubstantial impression, as of a home of spectral hobgoblins 

 and mountain gnomes. The ground is covered with thick carpets 

 of swamp-moss, numerous hepatic a, and an exquisite feathered 

 moss, the Breutelia Stuhlmanni. The masses of sphagnum are so 

 wet that they look like fully-saturated sponges. Among the 

 ericacecB are the shrubs or small trees of Rapanea pellucidostriata 

 Gilg., Olinia macrophylla Gilg., and the striking but somewhat 

 rare Vaccinium Stanleyi Schwfh., an African bilberry, whose 

 fruit is very similar to the European variety. I had already 

 come across it on Sabinjo amongst the volcanoes. In addition 

 to the splendid bushes of big, beautiful everlasting Helichrysiim 

 formosissimuni, two orchids are especially noteworthy, Satyrium 

 crassicaule, with pale pink, and Disa Siairsii, with dark rose 

 red or purple blooms, fine plants which are met with on the 

 volcanoes, and are reminiscent of many species of orchids of 

 our meadows. 



" Climbing on in the ericacecB region, we came upon an old 

 camping place, which we thought of naming our ' lower Belgian 

 camp.' We did not learn much by our advance, for w^e were 

 unable that day to see the higher mountains ; we only discovered 

 that we should have to progress along the same ridge over several 

 summits, and learnt from natives that higher up there was 

 supposed to be another 'Belgian camp.' 



" Should we shift our camp higher up ? It w^ould have been 

 simply impossible to wind our way through the dense ericacecB 



