518 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap, XXXVII. 
at work, we had to cross a very extensive forest, and I 
became greatly exhausted. Having passed about noon 
several villages, which proved to be all slave-villages 
with the exception of one, which contained a lord's 
mansion of neat appearance, suddenly the character of 
the country changed entirely, and we came to a wide 
depression or hollow, from one hundred to one hun- 
dred and twenty feet deep, which, winding round on 
our left, formed a fine green vale, bordered on the 
other side by a picturesque cone * rising abruptly, and 
forming on the east side a wooded terrace, while on 
the west it displayed a steep bare rocky flank of 
horizontal strata, and on this side, after a small 
interruption, a low ridge attached to it encircling 
the hollow on all sides. 
Having reached the south-eastern foot of the cone by 
a gradual ascent, we obtained a view over the varied 
and rich scenery before us, a luxuriant mass of vegeta- 
tion broken at intervals by comfortable-looking little 
* In this sketch, made just at the moment, I aimed only at 
giving the outlines of the mount, without any pretension to repre- 
sent the country around. The foreground, therefore) is left quite 
level. 
