STANLEY POOL. | 123 
plovers, frequent the thick tangles of high grass and the 
many sand-banks, where they form strange groups with 
the crocodiles, who are wont to lie basking in the sun in 
__a state of semi-conscious beatitude, 
The Pool forms, as it were, a great cup-like basin, with 
an incomplete rim formed by sierras of peaked and 
picturesque mountains, ranging on the southern side from 
1,000 feet to 3,000 feet in height. The banks of this 
ereat expanse of water offer considerable variety in 
character. At the northern, or north-eastern end, where 
the Upper Congo enters it through a somewhat narrow 
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FLOATING REED IsLAND ON STANLEY POOL. 
passage, the scenery 1s very beautiful. High woods rise 
so steeply above the water that, as you sail beneath their 
shade, they seem to mount indefinitely towards the sky. 
itis a wall of forest. Then, almost opposite, following 
the northern bank, are the “ Dover Cliffs,’ * their scarped 
sides white and glistening, and their crowns being covered 
with soft green grass. They more resemble, however, the 
scenery round Lyme Regis, in Dorset and Devon, than the 
harsher and more rugged cliffs of Dover. Then on both 
* Their geological formation is a white, sandy, somewhat crumbling 
soil, not chalk. 
