636 
BRIDGES OF GRASS. 
into Lualaba are covered with living vegetable bridges ; a 
species of dark glossy-leaved grass, with its roots and 
leaves, felts itself into a mat that covers the whole stream. 
When stepped upon it yields twelve or fifteen inches, and 
that amount of wateV rises up on the leg. At every step 
the foot has to be raised high enough to place it on the 
unbent mass in front. This high stepping fatigues like 
walking on deep snow. Here and there holes appear, which 
we could not sound witli a stick six feet long ; they gave 
us the impression that any where one might plump through 
and finish the chapter. Where the water is shallow the 
lotus, or sacred lily, sends its roots to the bottom, and 
spreads its broad leaves over the floating bridge, so as to 
make believe that the mat is its own, but the grass referred 
to is the real felting and supporting agent, for it often per- 
forms duty as bridge where no lilies grow. The bridge is 
called by Manyema “ Kintefuetefwc,” as if he who first 
coined it was gasping for breath after plunging over a mile 
of it. 
Between each district of Manyema large belts of the 
primeval forest still stand. Into these the sun, though 
vertical, cannot penetrate, except by sending down at mid- 
day thin pencils of rays into the gloom. The rain water 
stands for months in stagnant pools made by the feet of 
elephants ; and the dead leaves decay on the damp soil, 
and make the water of the numerous rivulets of the color 
of strong tea. The climbing plants, from the size of a 
whip cord to that of a man-of-war’s hawser, are so uumerous 
the ancient path is the only passage. When pne of the 
giant trees falls across the road it forms a wall breast high 
to be climbed over, and the mass of tangled ropes brought 
down makes cutting a path round it a work of time which 
travellers never undertake. 
The shelter of the forest from the sun makes it pleasant, 
but the roots of trees high out of the soil across the path 
keep the eyes, Oxlike, on the ground. The trees are so 
high that a good shotgun does no harm to the parrots or 
