STREAMS OF LAVA 185 



The floor of the valley is made entirely of lava, 

 most of which seems to have flowed, like a huge 

 black glacier, from Tsha-nina-gongo. Looking down 

 upon it from above it was easy to distinguish the 

 courses of the different streams, and to trace them 

 to their origin from the main crater or from various 

 subsidiary cones, which had burst from the sides 

 or at the foot of the mountain. It seemed as if 

 there must have been a fairly prolonged period 

 of quiescence, as the whole valley had become 

 overgrown with bushes and scrub, and towards 

 the east side, the side on which we were, even 

 with fairly large trees. Through the middle of 

 the valley curved a broad black band, about a 

 mile wide and many miles in length, the track of 

 the most recent overflow of lava. The eruption, 

 which had taken place the year before, had con- 

 tinued at intervals for several months, and the glare 

 of it (we were told) had been visible from the farther 

 end of Lake Albert Edward. 



Though we were for several weeks within a few 

 miles of the volcanoes, we felt only one or two 

 slight shocks of earthquakes, and the only signs we 

 saw of present volcanic activity were a cloud of 

 smoke that floated over the flat top of Tsha-nina- 

 gongo, and a jet of steam that spouted from the 

 southern slope of Nyamlagiro. There are said to 

 be hot springs in the volcano region, but we saw 

 none of them. 



From Bossuenda, keeping parallel with the lava 



