156 THE WEST SIDE OF RUWENZORI 



to get information about the said gold-mines, but it 

 was a subject about which the Belgian officials 

 were discreetly and mysteriously uncommunicative. 

 Urgent reasons prevented us from stopping in the 

 Ituri Valley, and in a few days we found ourselves 

 descending steep slopes into the Semliki Valley, 

 not many miles from Lake Albert, and we were 

 once more in British territory. 



