CHAPTER XII 



AMONGST THE WAMBUBA CANNIBALS 



«» Capped in scarlet parrots' feathers, draped in vesture wild and weird. 

 Beaded, bangled, ar.d barbaric, reverenced and rudely feared, 

 Lords of life and limb tinquestiotied. Kings of Crop and Kings of Clan, 

 Swayed they thus their forest silence on the old primcBval plan 

 Till the white men came among them, and the new regime began." 



Verse II, " The Crocodile Kings," by CuUen Gouldsbury. 



THE descent from Moera's to the native village of 

 Katushi, which is built on the floor of the Semliki 

 valley, is very steep in places, the track passing through 

 dense virgin forest and becoming a kind of tunnel here and 

 there, the haunt of large and brilliant forest butterflies, which 

 from every bunch of fallen fruit, fly up in sparkling clouds 

 as the traveller approaches. Flowers are by no means 

 common in the primeval forest, and the butterflies and 

 moths, most of the forest forms at any rate, feed on fruit, 

 plant juices and gums, some again — the rarest and most 

 beautiful — on dead and decaying animals and other offensive 

 matter. Here I added considerably to my already rich 

 collection. 



Besides these beautiful insects, I had collected some 

 valuable monkey skins in this neighbourhood, amongst them 

 were : The Red Colubus Monkey {Colobus ellioti) ; Dent's 

 Guenon {Cercopithecus denti) ; Stuhlmann's Guenon (Cerco- 

 pithecus leucampyx stuhlmanni) ; Huri Mangabey {Cercocebus 

 alhigena ituri) ; also I obtained a Flying Squirrel (Anomalurus 

 pusillus, and another fine reddish squirrel with a large bushy 

 grey tail. From the north end of Lake Kivu I had already 



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