Bujuku Valley.—Return of the Expedition. 
to carry down the equipment in several trips. The first party 
of porters had left Bnjongolo on the 4th July with forty loads. 
On the 7th a second caravan went down, accompanied by 
Roccati and by Cavalli, who had hastened his departure when 
he heard that there were porters ill in various camps of the 
valley, a report which proved to be without foundation. A 
week later Cagni left Bnjongolo with Laurent Petigax, 
Brocherel, Igini, and twenty-three natives ; the Duke had left 
for the Bujuku Valley on the previous day. Finally, on the 
15th of July, the departure of Bulli with a last party of thirty 
Bakonjos left Bujongolo deserted. 
All were satisfied with the work done, and were in fine 
spirits at the prospect of returning home, and left without a 
regret the wild rock which had offered them shelter during' five 
weeks. They were glad to leave behind them so much mud 
and stones, the melancholy vegetation consumed by the 
mildews and lichens, the pallid light of the mists, the 
everlasting drip of the rain, the damp and the cold, and to 
get back to the sun and the dry heat of the tropical plains, 
the life and the colour, the cries of birds, the bright flowers 
and the gay crowd of thoughtless and noisy Bagandas. 
The Mobuku River, swollen by more than fifteen days 
of continuous rains, was no longer recognizable. It 
formed magnificent cascades from one of the valley terraces 
to another. At every step on their way down, the parties 
met porters on their way up to Bujongolo to fetch loads. 
A month before, when they first came up from the plain, the 
valley had struck them as almost without sound of animal 
life, but now, after weeks spent in the silence of the mountains 
where at the utmost an occasional crow hovered overhead, 
they were impressed by every buzzing of insects or fluttering 
261 
