CHAPTER XIV 
THE GREAT RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO 
“The region of which I speak is a dreary region in 
Libya, by the borders of the river Zaire. And there is no 
quiet there nor silence. The waters of the river have a 
saffron hue, and for many miles on either side of the river’s 
oozy bed is a pale desert of gigantic water-lilies . . . and 
I stood in the morass among the tall lilies and the lilies 
sighed one unto the other in the solemnity of their desola¬ 
tion. And all at once the moon arose through the thin 
ghastly mist, and was crimson in color. . . . And the man 
looked out upon the dreary river Zaire, and upon the 
yellow ghastly waters, and upon the pale legions of the 
water-lilies. . . . Then I went down into the recess of 
the morass, and waded afar in among the wilderness of 
the lilies, and called unto the hippopotami which dwelt 
among the fens in the recesses of the morass.” I was read¬ 
ing Poe, on the banks of the Upper Nile; and surely his 
“fable” does deserve to rank with the “tales in the volumes 
of the Magi—in the ironbound, melancholy volumes of 
the Magi.” 
We had come down through the second of the great 
Nyanza lakes. As we sailed northward, its waters stretched 
behind us beyond the ken of vision, to where they were 
fed by streams from the Mountains of the Moon. On our 
left hand rose the frowning ranges on the other side of which 
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