186 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
pathetically, crowned with small water-birds, and here, 
turning at this land-mark, we proceed to strike away 
across the Congo for a little cove or inlet nearly opposite 
Msuata. Owing to the force of the current ‘we have to 
row a mile and a half up-stream to be able to land at the 
place desired, and allow for the inevitable descent of the 
canoe. When we leave the shore to cross as rapidly as 
may be the broad Congo, it is always a time of some 
anxiety. Before we are out of the shallows a hippopota- 
mus may come and wreck us, or once in the terrible mid- 
current, where the waves are leaping over each other, a 
wind storm may suddenly capsize our unstable bark. 
However, the further shore comes nearer and nearer, and 
we at length enter the quiet little bay for which we have 
steered, where there is a placid backwater shielded by a 
spit of forest. Here the canoe is tied to a fallen tree, and — 
the tent is put up on the beach to protect the heavier 
bageage, and our batterie de cuisine from the sun, whilst | 
we, leaving Mafta behind to commence preparations for 
the mid-day meal, with eager haste on my part leave the 
open beach of white sand, and following an elephant path, 
plunge into the cool forest. | 
In England I am a fire-worshipper; in the tropics I 
adore the trees. My heart goes out to the erring (?) 
Jews of old who “ built them high places and images and 
eroves, on every high hill and under every green tree,’ 
and who, in spite of occasional iconoclastic or “ dendro- 
clastic’’ rulers who arose and cut down the groves, 
relapsed repeatedly from their harsher, sterner, desert faith 
—the faith of Job and the modern Bedouin—into the 
softer cult of towering, shade-giving trees. The Forest is 
most to be appreciated in the Lands of the Sun, where its 
cool green gloom contrasts so soothingly with the hard, 
white heat in the open. So we follow the elephant’s track 
with careful steps and slow, avoiding crackling twigs and 
thorny branches and ant-infested shrubs. The less noise 
we make in this arcana of wild things, the more shall we 
see of its higher life. Sh!—listen, what was that? A 
series of crashes in the forest follow my query, then a 
