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 desolation. And all at once the 
moon arose through the thin, ghastly mist, and was 
crimson in colour. . . . 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 reading 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 
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