AMID THE SNOW PEAKS OF THE EQUATOR 



271 



The path is nearly always as bad as can 

 be — often it is nothing but a succession of 

 fallen trees and muddy elephant-baths; 

 but there is a subtle fascination about 

 walking through the forest, which in- 

 creases as the days go by. The best way 

 to feel the forest is to walk far ahead or, 

 4ls I lazily preferred to do, miles behind 

 the caravan, far beyond the sound of a 

 disturbing gunshot or of the unceasing 

 -chatter of the porters. Sometimes there 

 is a sound of crashing through the trees, 

 where a herd of elephants have been dis- 

 turbed in their siesta ; sometimes a troop 

 of monkeys dash twittering through the 

 tree-tops, or huge topheavy-looking 

 hornbills fly overhead screaming uncouth 

 ■discords; but more often the silence of 

 the forest is unbroken and complete, and 

 you may walk for miles at a time and not 

 riear a sound or see a sign of living crea- 

 ture. It may be only a result of the half 

 gloom and one's sense of smallness amid 

 the vast surroundings, or it may be an 

 instinct inherited from prehistoric forest- 

 dwelling ancestors ; but, whatever the 

 cause may be, you find yourself walking 

 with unwonted care and ever on the alert 

 for an unknown something. 



It was only in the infrequent clearings, 

 where we camped, that we realized how 

 immense, compared with our insignifi- 

 cant tents, the trees of the forest are ; as 

 a rule, their height is greater in propor- 

 tion to their girth than is the case with 

 an ash or an elm. The forest is seldom 

 level ; it is always gently rising or falling, 

 as much one way as another, and it was 

 not until we found one day that the 

 streams were no longer flowing to our 

 right into the Semliki that we realized 

 that we had crossed the watershed into 

 the basin of the Congo. 



Wandering on, day after day, through 

 the forest, one began to wonder, "Shall 

 we come out of it all some day, as one 

 does from a tunnel?" and our coming 

 out of it was almost as sudden as that. 

 Without any warning, except that for a 

 mile or so the trees had become perhaps 

 a little smaller, the forest ended abruptly, 

 and we found ourselves on the edge of 

 an open, hilly, grass country that 



stretched as far as we could see to east 

 and north. 



lions are; not usually dangerous 



The few inhabitants of the district 

 about Albert Edward Nyanza, on the 

 Uganda side, seem to be almost wholly a 

 water-side people, who live entirely by 

 fishing. At the southeast corner of the 

 lake are some curious colonies of lake- 

 dwellers, whose huts are built several 

 yards from the shore, with the object, 

 presumably, of escaping the attack of the 

 lions, which are always in attendance on 

 large herds of game. At a small village 

 at the extreme south end of the lake our 

 camp was surrounded by a high reed- 

 fence for the same purpose, and only a 

 few days before we arrived there a man, 

 who incautiously went outside the fence 

 after dark, had been carried off and 

 eaten. 



They are chiefly nocturnal in their 

 habits, and the country where they live 

 is usually so densely clothed with grass 

 or scrub that, unless you go out with the 

 express purpose of hunting them, the 

 chances are very much against catching 

 a glimpse of a lion at all. In cultivated 

 districts, so far from being a source of 

 public danger, lions may be looked upon 

 as the friend of the agriculturist. Like 

 the tigers in some parts of India, their 

 favorite food is the wild pigs and small 

 antelopes which play such havoc among 

 the crops, and their complete extermina- 

 tion would not prove to be by any means 

 an unmixed blessing. It is only very 

 rarely that men are attacked by them. 

 Of course, if a man is foolish enough to 

 walk about after dark, he offers a tempt- 

 ing meal which no hungry lion would be 

 likely to refuse; but instances of lions, 

 like the famous man-eaters of Tsavo, ac- 

 quiring a preference for human flesh and 

 breaking into huts and tents to seize men 

 are quite exceptional. 



VIRULENT FEVER CAUSED BY TICKS 



We had intended to stop for a few 

 days to visit the villages of the lake- 

 dwellers, but in that we had reckoned 

 without the spirillum. There is a species 



