THE MASSOWA RANGE 77 



itseli across the wide intervening space of glassy 

 blue water and, as yet, dark forest land like a vast 

 deep purple shadow against the rapidly brightening 

 radiance behind. As the light increases, the great 

 river takes on a lighter, opalescent, greyish green, 

 and from dark purple the mountain shows a pale, 

 transparent bluish grey, a belt of feathery white 

 cirrus cloud drawn like a pencilled line across its 

 waist. The whole of its base is wreathed in thin 

 morning vapour of the colour one sees in mother- 

 of-pearl, loth as yet to expose itself to the garish 

 light of the coming day. A few minutes more 

 and the rising sun, which has already tinged the 

 eastern sky with a changing glory deepening from 

 pale luminous saffron to bright transparent chrome, 

 shoots the first beams of light across a high out- 

 lying shoulder, and in an instant the great granite 

 boulders and rough stony outcrop of the upper 

 peaks are all aglitter. 



We are away by 7.30, ascending a gradually 

 widening river, flanked on the north bank by the 

 long chain of the Massowa Hills, and on the south 

 by beautifully wooded, undulating country. About 

 10.30 we pass a tumbledown collection of huts 

 and a decrepit cattle corral, said to belong to the 

 Mozambique Company. The river here, I am in- 

 formed, though very shallow, is fully three miles 

 wide. The Massowa range, to which I have just 

 alluded, springs into being directly we leave Mu- 

 terara, and rises gradually from the river bank to 

 its ridge, which may perhaps attain to a little more 

 than 1,000 feet in height, presenting an agreeable 

 vista of unbroken tree-covered verdure. This ridge 



