FORESTS AND RANGES OF THE MIDDLE ZONE 77 



One of us, wearing only stockings, had thirty bites and 

 lost half a pint, and from tearing off the venomous brutes 

 suffered a good deal of irritation. There are hundreds 

 of little flies also, called moras, which buzz round in an 

 innocent sort of way and light on the under-sides of your 

 hands and exposed places ; most noxious pests, for if 

 they succeed in getting half a minute unobserved they 

 will insert a poison under the skin, which makes a round 

 red blister. Very hungry mosquitoes also abounded in 

 this valley, but they are gentlemen beside moras. There 

 were big yellow gadflies also, which stuck swords in 

 through one's clothing ; and even the house flies, which 

 swarmed in myriads, had nasty stings. Camping here 

 was not all joy, and with six different kinds of poisonous 

 wounds in one's body it was not easy to come up smiling. 

 Our carriers were seized with a holy horror also of the 

 evil spirits which abound in this mysterious region. 

 They stated that the jungles were also haunted by jungle 

 men, who had no houses and wore no clothes and lived 

 on carrion. If we went up the Gori river,* where no path 

 existed, we should certainly never return alive. How- 

 ever, as the valley was left blank in the maps, and the 

 forests under Chipula Hill were magnificent and very 

 extensive, I was the more anxious to explore the haunted 

 jungle. 



Sending our heavy camp with Mr. Drummond by the 

 road which follows the Kali river, Hodgson and I started 

 with light equipage and two servants up the Gori. Leaving 

 the road, we wound our way through dense jungle up 

 the left bank of the river, and stumbling among great 

 rocks, we found a path through dense forest and masses 

 of creepers. We came at last out on the heights above, 

 where the caves of the wild men were said to be. It was 

 * The branch of the Kali coming from Milam. 



