CHAPTER XIV 

 THE GREAT RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO 



"THE region of which I speak is a dreary region in 

 Libya, by the borders of the river Zaire. And there is no 

 quiet there nor silence. The waters of the river have a 

 saffron hue, and for many miles on either side of the river's 

 oozy bed is a pale desert of gigantic water-lilies . . . and 

 I stood in the morass among the tall lilies and the lilies 

 sighed one unto the other in the solemnity of their desola- 

 tion. And all at once the moon arose through the thin 

 ghastly mist, and was crimson in color. . . . And the man 

 looked out upon the dreary river Zaire, and upon the 

 yellow ghastly waters, and upon the pale legions of the 

 water-lilies. . . . Then I went down into the recess of 

 the morass, and waded afar in among the wilderness of 

 the lilies, and called unto the hippopotami which dwelt 

 among the fens in the recesses of the morass." I was read- 

 ing Poe, on the banks of the Upper Nile; and surely his 

 "fable" does deserve to rank with the "tales in the volumes 

 of the Magi in the ironbound, melancholy volumes of 

 the Magi." 



We had come down through the second of the great 

 Nyanza lakes. As we sailed northward, its waters stretched 

 behind us beyond the ken of vision, to where they were 

 fed by streams from the Mountains of the Moon. On our 

 left hand rose the frowning ranges on the other side of which 

 the Congo forest lies like a shroud over the land. On our 

 right we passed the mouth of the Victorian Nile, alive with 

 monstrous crocodiles, and its banks barren of human life be- 

 cause of the swarms of the fly whose bite brings the torment 

 which ends in death. As night fell we entered the White 

 Nile, and steamed and drifted down the mighty stream. 



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