THE MANYUEMA COUNTRY 229 



cathedral towers and other high places. It was a 

 day of grief and pain for me, as I was suffering from 

 an ill-conditioned leg, and was forced to travel in a 

 hammock ; but the porters and the hammock and I 

 would have been picked up in fragments at the 

 bottom if they had tried to carry me down, so I had 

 to crawl down as best I could. At the top of the 

 last steep pitch of about a thousand feet, I remember 

 thinking of Tom in ' The Water Babies,' when he 

 looked over into Vendale. Far below was a clear 

 stream and a hut where the camp was, but a group 

 of naked black figures instead of the old woman 

 with the red petticoat. After the lapse of time and 

 with many groans I arrived at the bottom as dirty 

 in body and as sore in spirit as was Tom. 



Although Tanganyika and Lake Kivu do actually 

 form a part of the Congo system by the connexion 

 of the former lake with the Conoo through the 

 Lukuga River, it was not until we crossed the 

 mountains to the west of Tanganyika that we 

 entered the Congo basin proper. From the foot 

 of the mountains to the river, a distance of about 

 1 20 miles, there is a hideous country of unspeakable 

 dreariness, without a single landmark or physical 

 feature of beauty. As we looked down upon it 

 from the hills, it seemed to be an almost level plain 

 covered with trees, but we soon found that it was 

 a rough, undulating bush-country, in which it was 

 seldom possible to see more than half a mile in any 

 direction. 



