174 THE GREAT FOREST THICKETS. 



hear from natives some news of a grassy country to the 

 north, south, or east of them, it was not until we were 

 seven days' march from the grassy region that we came 

 across any that had ever heard of grass land; to the rest, 

 all the world was overgrown with one endless forest. We 

 had neither seen nor heard of any open space, save the 

 clearings that had been laboriously made by the natives, 

 and had to be every season subjected to laborious cutting, 

 lest the forest should usurp what cultivated space had been 

 gained." "Our progress through the dense underwood, which 

 grew beneath the impervious shades of the forest giants 

 matted by great cable-like convolvuli, was often only at the 

 rate of 400 yards an hour, as through such obstructions we 

 had to tunnel a way for the column to pass." * 



This column, it seems, on entering the forest origin- 

 ally consisted of 389 men, but only 173 came out on 

 the other side, f The rest had died, or had to be left 

 behind, disabled by terrible ulcers on the feet and legs, 

 which incapacitated them from travelling; semi- 

 starvation, poisoned arrows, and desertion, caused most 

 of the remaining losses. Others again straggled from 

 the route in search of bananas, or other food, and 

 were never more heard of; for, as Mr. Stanley himself 

 reminds us, " it is useless to search in the forest for a 

 lost man, donkey, or article. Like the waves of the 

 sea, divided by the ship's prow, uniting at the stern; 

 so the forest enfolds, past finding, within its deep 

 shades, whosoever enters, and reveals nothing." ** 



All the accounts which have been published about 

 this great forest show that it is pretty well everywhere 



* Extract from Mr. Stanley's official report of his expedition, of 

 December 18, 1889 published in the Times of Feb. 18, 1890. 

 f Ibid. Ibid. 

 ** In Darkest Africa, by H. M. Stanley, 1890, Vol. i, p. 195. 



