CHAPTER IX 



IN THE SHADE OF THE VIRGIN FOREST 



We started on our journey to the west on the 1st of April, 1908, 

 by a route which has gained sad notoriety in the history of 

 African exploration. We followed a path almost identical with 

 that which Stanley traversed and on which he experienced the 

 greatest hardships and privations in coming from the Congo to 

 the succour of Emin Pasha, who, cut off by the Mahdi revolt, 

 lived practically a prisoner in his equatorial province. The same 

 vast forest, so gloomily described in the pages of " In Darkest 

 Africa," lay before us. This darksome forest, indeed, with its 

 storms and rains, famine, disease and deadly attacks, nearly 

 proved fatal to the whole caravan and reduced it to a condition 

 of utter desperation and madness. The first patch of green 

 grass appeared to us as a token and promise, as the olive branch 

 in the mouth of the dove did to Noah of old. 



We were travelling along paths which had already been 

 made ; we knew in advance where we should lay our heads to 

 rest from day to day ; we were well supplied with stores ; we 

 journeyed more comfortably here than we did at first in the steppe 

 country, or in the volcanic region, and yet we experienced that 

 oppressiveness which is always felt in this gigantic forest. The 

 conditions of travelling alone were different ; the forest remained 

 the same in its immeasurable and inexorable lonesomeness. 



The departure took place under inauspicious conditions in 

 streaming rain, which had set in violently during the night, 

 though unaccompanied by lightning, and had compelled many 

 of us to wander about with our beds as the water penetrated the 

 houses. The confusion usually in evidence when quarters occu- 



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