DESCENT TO THE PLAINS 217 



of another stage of our journey. Far below us 

 at our feet lay the wide, tree-covered plain, where 

 once the lake used to be, and over it, like a streak 

 of silver, curled the great Rusisi River. On the 

 horizon, forty miles away, the sunshine sparkled 

 on the waters of Tanganyika. Though everything 

 there was on such a vastly greater scale, the view 

 at once suggested to me a view from the Cotswolds 

 of the winding Severn, and a glimpse of the sea 

 beyond. 



The descent of those 3,000 or 4,000 feet was 

 another of the swift changes, almost theatrical in 

 their suddenness, to which one is so often treated 

 in Africa. On the whole, I think it is not a very 

 good arrangement ; ninety-nine days' journeys out of 

 a hundred are so monotonously alike that it seems 

 a pity to concentrate all the excitement of a change 

 into the hundredth. It is a waste of emotions, and 

 one would like to prolong the pleasure over a few 

 days ; but perhaps the sudden and unexpected 

 changes are better impressed upon the memory. 

 In a few hours we exchanged a cool European 

 climate for the roasting heat of tropical Africa, 

 and mountain meadows filled with flowers for the 

 typical euphorbia- and acacia-covered plains, which 

 had become so familiar to us in the Albert Edward 

 country. A few miles before it leaves the hills, 

 the Rusisi flows (we were told) through a long 

 natural tunnel, probably through the debris of a 

 landslip ; but the sultriness of the plains was de- 



