AMID THE SNOW PEAKS OF THE EQUATOR 267 



rents, feeding on the fruit of a tree be- 

 low the camp. With the help of field- 

 glasses it was easy to see the almost 

 painfully human gestures of the old ones, 

 as they helped the little one to move from 

 branch to branch and fed it with berries. 

 Although they are most commonly found 

 in the tropical forests at a lower level, 

 chimpanzees wander about a great deal 

 and go far up the mountains in search of 

 food; we found traces of them at a 

 height of nearly 10,000 feet in Ruwen- 

 zori, where they had been feeding on the 

 berries of a podocarpus. 



GAMBOLING HIPPOS 



A few miles from Albert Edward 

 Nyanza we came to a circular lake, once 

 a crater, about half a mile wide. The 

 water is slightly salt and is greatly ap- 

 preciated by the hippos, who come here 

 in large parties to bathe. The lake is 

 shallow for a few yards only, and then 

 deepens rapidly, so the hippos, who do 

 not like deep water, never go very far 

 from the shore. 



On a still day it is an amusing pastime 

 to sit by the lake and watch the great 

 brutes enjoying themselves. For a mo- 

 ment nothing is to be seen, then suddenly 

 a score or more of huge heads burst 

 through the surface with loud snorts and 

 squirting jets of water through their nos- 

 trils. They stare round with their ugly 

 little piglike eyes, yawn prodigiously, 

 showing a fearful array of tusks and a 

 cavernous throat, and sink with a satis- 

 fied gurgle out of sight, to repeat the per- 

 formance a minute or two afterwards. 

 Sometimes one stands almost upright in 

 the water, then he rolls over with a 

 sounding splash, showing a broad ex- 

 panse of back like a huge porpoise ; or a 

 too venturesome young bachelor ap- 

 proaches a select circle of veterans, who 

 resent his intrusion and drive him away 

 with roars and grunts. There is some- 

 thing irresistibly suggestive of humanity 

 about their ungainly gambols ; only bath- 

 ing-machines are wanted to complete the 

 picture. 



POWERFUL BIRDS 



There are two birds which will live in 

 my memory long after I have forgotten 



everything else about this region. One is 

 the Bateleur eagle, which may be called 

 the first-class cruiser among birds; for 

 power and swiftness of flight there is 

 none that can compare with it. With 

 its long wings and curious stunted tail, 

 it looks more like a huge bat than a 

 bird, as it sails high overhead, never flap- 

 ping its wings, but giving just an occa- 

 sional tilt from one side to the other. 

 One moment it is here, and the next it is 

 a speck almost out of sight across the 

 plain. 



The other is a very remarkable spe- 

 cies of Nightjar, in which some of the 

 feathers of the wing, particularly the 

 second primary, are enormously length- 

 ened ; the longest that was measured had 

 a length of 21 inches. These birds sleep 

 during the day in warm places on the hill- 

 sides until sunset, when they fly down to 

 the low ground about the lake. The long 

 feathers, trailing out like streamers be- 

 hind them, give the birds a most un- 

 natural appearance, as if they had four 

 wings ; but though one would expect the 

 long feathers to be rather an encum- 

 brance than otherwise when the bird is 

 chasing insects, it can turn and twist in 

 flight as quickly as a peewit. 



ACROSS THE) BORDER IN THE CONGO STATE 



After coming from Uganda, where the 

 natives are not allowed to carry weapons, 

 it was strange to us to see all the peo- 

 ple going about armed across the border 

 in the Congo State. The majority of 

 them carried spears, while a good many 

 carried a short bamboo bow and a quiver 

 full of arrows made of reeds pointed 

 with curiously fashioned tips of metal. 

 Our stay was enlivened (if it may be 

 said without disrespect to the departed) 

 by the death of Kilongozi, the big chief 

 of the district. Many of his vassals had 

 assembled several days before in anticipa- 

 tion of his death, and as soon as the 

 event was announced it was greeted with 

 a chorus of shrieks and wails, which re- 

 sounded throughout the country and con- 

 tinued with brief intervals for several 

 days. 



The chief was buried beneath the floor 

 of his house, about which his subjects, 



