GRANITE UPHEAVALS 157 



pointed out, that the dense forest is almost entirely 

 absent, if by such a term we seek to describe large 

 tracts covered by those immense tropical trees 

 which other parts of Africa possess in such 

 amazing quantity and variety. These only exist 

 in unimportant numbers in the lower, warmer, and 

 better-watered localities ; but in spite of this I 

 should be inclined to describe it, having regard to 

 its position and elevation, as a well-forested region, 

 and one possessed of many beauties which are all 

 its own. Foremost among these are the mighty 

 granite upheavals. Any adequate description of 

 the astonishing shapes these giants appear in would 

 require far more space than I can devote to the 

 subject. Some take the form of an inverted basin, 

 or, more accurately still, of an almost perfect hemi- 

 sphere, so accurately rounded that in the far 

 distance they look like mighty cannon balls half 

 sunk where they have fallen. Others again thrust 

 a vast monolith of solid granite — one mighty un- 

 broken whole — through the surface of the ground 

 to a height of eight hundred or a thousand feet, 

 and appear to be perpetually surveying the startled 

 plain below with an air of mild surprise. 



These immense, forested, mountainous uplands 

 often seem to me to furnish so many vast and 

 striking instances of the inconspicuousness of the 

 presence of the human race in the great African 

 continent ; of the puny, inconsiderable character of 

 the labour which man has devoted to the task 

 of winning for the service of his kind the tree-clad 

 fallow immensity which nature surrounds with so 

 many almost insurmountable prohibitions. I dare 



