CHAPTER X 



IN THE VALLEY OF THE UPPER SEMLIKI AND THE ASCENT OF 

 THE RUVVENZORI MOUNTAINS 



" These for the setting ; and, beneath it all. 

 Tattered and scarred. 

 My lent, set up in some wide glade, where tall 

 Dim trees keep guard. 

 * • * * 



" So, in a silence of the early world, 

 I sit and gaze 

 Upon the pictures, open and unfurled 

 Amid the haze." 



Ill the Smoke. Verses III and V. 



HAVING reached Kasindi, which stands just below 

 the equator on the southern foot of the Ruwenzori 

 Mountains, we were now approaching that Mecca of 

 entomologists and zoologists — the vast primeval forest, that, 

 bounded on the east by this mountain range, extends from 

 the Semliki valley right across the entire centre of the Northern 

 Congo Basin, and the equal of which is only to be found in 

 the selvas of the Amazon. 



Few portions of the African continent remain unexplored 

 to-day, but here we were on the borders of the still unknown 

 region which lies to the south-east of Kasindi, and roughly 

 forming that piece of country drained by the higher waters 

 of the Lindi River directly to the west of Lake Edward, 

 a district given over to wild cannibal tribes known as the 

 Bahuni and Wakobi, and which is, judging by reports brought 

 in by elephant hunters and prospectors who have visited 

 its outskirts, certainly rich in gold, as well as in cattle and 

 ivory. 



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