RUWENZORI A CLIMBING RESORT 107 



years to come. Floundering through Ruwenzori 

 swamps is very much the same sort of thing, though 

 far more disagreeable ; but I confess that if a chance 

 occurred arain of falling; into one of those moss- 

 covered mud-traps, or of being tripped up by a 

 helichrysum, I would welcome it without a moment's 

 hesitation. Fixed ropes and * pitons ' have not yet 

 appeared in Ruwenzori, nor do I think that they 

 are ever likely to, as the climbing is nowhere 

 difficult ; the main difficulty lies in approaching the 

 peaks. The empty sardine -tin and the broken 

 bottle are still strangers in the land, and long may 

 they continue to be so. 



The attempts that we made to penetrate into the 

 heart of the range were hopelessly handicapped, as 

 I have suggested above, by lack of means and 

 equipment. We were not in any sense a climbing 

 party, and our excursions were made during the 

 course of other occupations. A strong party, who 

 could afford to take with them one or two European 

 porters, ought to have no difficulty in making a 

 complete survey of the range. They would have 

 to ' rough it,' and forego most of the comforts of 

 civilization for a time ; but the fascination of being 

 in an almost unknown world, and the strange beauty 

 of the scenery, would be more than compensation 

 enough for the unpleasantness. There still remains 

 a considerable amount of good exploring work to be 

 done from the western valleys of the range and on 

 the southern peaks, and it would be pleasant to 

 hope that it may be done by Englishmen. 



