06 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
en passant, that the; palm-wine was served in a silver-gilt 
jug, and drank out of a silver-gilt goblet. This will give 
you an idea of how civilization is acting upon Nguvi — 
M panda. 
‘The path leading to Fella branched off from the 
Isangila road a short distance beyond this village. For — 
some > half mile we wandered through plantations of sweet 
potatoes and ground-nuts, and then emerging from the 
thick vegetation, stood on the brow of a great hill, from 
which an astonishing sweep of view was commanded. 
We looked right across a wide expanse of rolling grassy 
down and winding valleys, at a colossal mass of rising- 
eround, surmounted by a fringe of dark trees, where lay 
the distant village of Yelala. To the right bold ranges of 
hills on the other bank of the invisible Congo, and to the 
left more hills from whence the little river Loa takes its rise. 
The humpy valley at my feet seemed a long basin of dish- 
like shape, shut in by these many mountains. I callita — 
“humpy” valley, because it was very unequal in surface. 
Little hummocks or hillocks broke up its uniformity, and 
it was dotted and strewn with blocks of white quartz, which 
seemed as if they had been recently washed out of the 
crumbling hillside by the heavy rains. A grand view for 
space and aerial effect it was, and one moreover singularly 
characteristic of this part of the Congo; but withal ugly, 
inhospitable, and tame. All alike, hills and valleys were 
clothed with waving yellow-green grass, the monotony 
only broken by the intrusive blocks of quartz. Save in 
one or two sheltered valleys, where a few pitiful oil-palms 
clustered, not a tree was to be seen; and the little gnarled 
bushes here and there to be found were almost covered 
with the tall, feathery grass that was emphatically the 
king of the country. The only signs of animal life were 
very large grasshoppers, with green bodies and scarlet 
wings, that whirred across the path in a blaze of scarlet, 
and then settled down on some grass stalk and relapsed 
into a monotony of green. The country was not lacking 
in water, fortunately, and our immoderate thirst, after 
scrambling down the rocky hillside, was amply quenched — 
he 
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