CHAPTER IX 



THE PLAINS OF RUISAMBA 



' A sudden little river crossed my path 

 As unexpected as a serpent comes. 

 No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms ; 

 This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath 

 For the fiend's glowing hoof — to see the wrath 



Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.' 



Robert Browning. 



I HAVE never been in prison, so I do not know 

 what it feels like to come out again, but I can 

 imagine that the sensations of a liberated prisoner 

 are not very different from those that we felt on the 

 day we left Bihunga. During the last six weeks 

 that we were there, there were, perhaps, six more or 

 less fine days. At the best our horizon was not a 

 very wide one r with the steep valley walls on either 

 side and a high ridge at our backs, there was only 

 one narrow gap, through which the distance could 

 be seen, but more often than not heavy rain 

 descended upon us from above and dense clouds 

 rolled up the valley at our feet, so that life became 

 gloomy and monotonous enough. 



At the foot of the valley, instead of crossing the 

 Mubuku to its left bank, we turned off to the south- 



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