72 



THE EAST SIDE OF RUWENZORI 



Africa to a southern English county. From the 

 edge of the wall of forest a hill slopes steeply 

 upwards, covered with deep bracken, and here and 

 there scattered trees, which look from a short dis- 

 tance for all the world like oak-trees ; swallows and 

 martins are hawking in the air, butterflies are 

 fluttering about the flowering trees ; and over all 

 is the watery pale-blue sky of a northern climate. 

 With the least effort of the imagination, one 

 would say that this was one of the higher parts 

 of the New Forest, or a woodland in Somerset or 

 Devon. 



Wherever we went from the camp at Bihunga, 

 it was necessary to mount or descend at least 

 i,ooo feet, with the result that we thought nothing 

 of going up 2,000 or 3,000 feet along a forest ridge 

 in the morning in pursuit of birds or plants. After 

 spending several days scrambling up and down the 

 steep hill-sides, it was sometimes a pleasant change 

 to go down into the valley and stretch one's legs 

 upon level ground. It was like going down from 

 Montanvert to Chamounix, but instead of walking 

 through pine-woods in the level valley, we took 

 shelter from the sun in groves of tall bananas. 

 I always think that sunlight comes more beautifully 

 through the leaves of Spanish chestnuts than 

 through any other leaves, and next to them in order 

 come the leaves of the banana ; they are just 

 transparent enough to temper the sunlight and 

 produce a small degree of shade and coolness with- 



