I 



lUijuku Valley. — Return of the Expedition. 



to c;irrv down the eqiiipineiit in several trips. The first party 

 of porters had left Bujongolo on tlie 4tli July with forty loads. 

 (,)n tlie 7th a second caravan went down, accompanied hy 

 Iloccati and hy Cavalli, who had hastened his departure when 

 lie lieard tliat there were porters ill in various camps of the 

 valley, a report which proved to he without foundation. A 

 week later Cagni left Bujongolo with Laurent Petigax, 

 Brocherel, Igini, and twenty-three natives ; the Duke had left 

 for the Bujuku Valley on the previous day. Finally, on the 

 15th of July, the departure of Bulli with a last party of thirty 

 Bakonjos left Bujongolo deserted. 



All \\'ere satisfied with the work done, and were in fine 

 spirits at the prospect of returning home, and left without a 

 reo'ret the wild rock which had offered them shelter durine- five 

 weeks. They were glad to leave behind them so much mud 

 and stones, the melancholy vegetation consumed Ijy the 

 mildews and lichens, the pallid light of the mists, the 

 everlasting drip of the rain, the damp and the cold, and to 

 get back to the sun and the dry heat of the tropical plains, 

 the life and the colour, the cries of birds, the bright flowers 

 and the gay crowd of thoughtless and noisy Bagandas. 



The Mobuku Biver, swollen by more than fifteen days 

 of continuous rains, was no longer recognizable. It 

 formed magnificent cascades from one of the valley terraces 

 to another. At every step on their way down, the parties 

 met porters on their way up to Bujongolo to fetch loads. 



A month before, when they first came up from the plain, the 

 valley had struck them as almost without sound of animal 

 life, but now, after weeks spent in the silence of the mountains 

 where at the utmost an occasional crow hovered overhead, 

 tliey were impressed by every buzzing of insects or fluttering 



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