From Fort Portal to Biijongolo — Mobukii Valley. 



scratched the face and hands of the travellers, led up the 

 spur of Bihunga, and tlieii crossed the tiny Chawa Valley 

 and redescended into the Valley of Mahoma, an important 

 tributary on the riglit hand of tlie Mobuku, 



The descent was steep, through a dense forest of tall trees 

 which climbed high up on the precipitous sides of the valley. 

 Numerous specimens of a tine conifer, the podocarpus, were 

 overgrown with a tangle of creeping plants diversified with 

 brilliant orcliids. Under the trees was a dense leafy under- 

 gro\^'th mingled with ferns of numerous species, forming so 

 impenetrable a brusliwood that the path became a veritable 

 tunnel, where one had to walk bent double for lono- tracts. 

 The bushes and creeping plants covered many fallen tree-trunks, 

 fi-om the rich soil under which numerous specimens w^ere added 

 to the zoological collections. The ground was very damp, in 

 many places soaking, and extremely slippery, and the porters 

 liad difficulty in keeping their feet. The way ran through tlie 

 forest as far as the banks of the Mahoma. 



Once the torrent crossed, the path w^ound among ferns and 

 tree-ferns of several varieties up a slope so steep as to be 

 extremely laborious for the porters, who marched disbanded 

 and very slowly. At a certain point of altitude the first 

 bamboos and heaths appeared among the ferns. The ground 

 w^as slippery and muddy, and scattered wdth rocks of every 

 dimension. 



Tliis slope is merely a great lateral moraine of the glacier 

 wliich once flowed down the valley and probably covered the 

 whole plain of Ibanda. It is imaccountable that the real 

 nature of this ridge should liave escaped the notice of so 

 many previous explorers of the Mobuku Valley. A corre- 

 sponding and ])arallel moraine runs along the opposite or 



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