The Ruchuru and Ruindi Plains 



With these jottings on its contemporary history, I must 

 leave the Ruanda and passing on, again cross the Congo- 

 Nile watershed into the Lake Edward basin and describe our 

 journeys through it to the Mountains of the Moon. 



We left Kisenji with an excited crowd standing round 

 the remains of the meal of the man-eater, while the relatives 

 of the deceased one occupied themselves in tying them on to 

 a pole, with the idea of finishing off the feast in their own 

 huts for aught I know ! 



Although our send-off was not lacking in heartiness and 

 good wishes — for we made friends easily — it was on this 

 occasion put quite in the shade by the night's tragedy. Thus 

 it was we left behind us the palms, the lemon groves, and the 

 geranium borders of beautiful Kisenji, to cross the boundary 

 into the Belgian Congo. 



The track to Ruchuru takes the traveller by way of Kibati, 

 through the pass formed by the two volcanoes of Ninagongo 

 and Namlagira on the one hand and Mikeno and Karisimbi 

 on the other. We had therefore to pass again close to the 

 gorilla country and this decided me to spend a few days in an 

 attempt to obtain some moving-pictures of these rare animals 

 alive and to study their habits still further. 



We pitched the tents on one of the lower spurs of Mikeno, 

 on the same spot where the Foster brothers had made camp 

 some months previously. These two Uganda coffee planters 

 had the good fortune to shoot a male and female gorilla, 

 and to secure a baby one a few days old which they found 

 clinging to the back of its dead mother. I have heard since 

 that it thrived well and was bought by the New York Zoo. 

 The Fosters had an interesting and successful hunting expedi- 

 tion until almost the last day before their return home, when 



95 



