86 CLIMBING IN RUWENZORI 



a way through them, and cutting was too slow a 

 process, so the natives adopted the plan of bending 

 the bamboos down and walking over the top of 

 them, which rather unusual method of procedure we 

 followed for some time. Our guides, who professed 

 to know the way, were as ignorant as we were our- 

 selves, and with the additional difficulty of rain and 

 fog, it was by the merest chance that, after several 

 hours of toilsome scrambling, we came suddenly on 

 the lake at an altitude of about 9,800 feet. It was 

 almost circular, and about 400 yards across. If it 

 is — as there can be little doubt that it is — a crater 

 lake (the banks are very steep, and at a distance 

 of I yard from the edge we were unable to reach 

 the bottom with a long bamboo pole), it is the 

 highest crater lake in Ruwenzori. The next visitor 

 to the lake, if ever another has the energy to 

 venture there, will find the remains of a quaint little 

 shrine of branches decked with leaves and flowers, 

 which our guides erected to conciliate the evil spirits 

 of the place. 



After struggling for miles through the dense 

 jungle of bamboo, where all sense of direction was 

 quickly lost, it was a relief beyond measure to come 

 out occasionally on to tolerably level ground, where 

 one could at all events get a glimpse here and there 

 through the fog and rain, even though it meant ex- 

 changing the slippery slopes for swamps and sloughs, 

 where the easiest path was knee-deep in mud and 

 water. ' The way was also here very wearisome, 



