Through the Semliki Valley 201 
semble the men as regards stature and complexion. Occasionally 
they wear thin copper rings drawn through their lips, and cowrie- 
shell pendants as ornaments. Their apparel is yet more primitive 
than that of their lords and masters, their apron often dwindling 
down to a barely perceptible triangle. 
The children, who are quite naked, are carried on their 
mothers’ hips, supported at times by a very thin cord running 
down from their mothers’ shoulders, which occasionally cuts 
deeply into the infants’ bodies and causes many a poor little 
creature to wail miserably. 
The Wambutti have no fixed abode. Their place of residence 
changes according to their whim or hunting conditions, but is 
never to be found outside the forest boundary. The huts are 
carefully built of liane, covered over with foliage, which is 
scarcely proof against beating rain. 
Those who do not live by pillage, theft and hunting— 
favourite pursuits of the entire race—spend their existence in and 
about these huts, occupying themselves, as mentioned, with smith¬ 
craft, carving, etc. 
At Muera’s village the two biologists parted from us, as they 
were anxious to continue their task of collecting along the road, 
the small birds, butterflies, etc., being more frequently met with 
there than in the forest itself. Later on in our march through 
the mysterious forest, which lasted some weeks, we noticed that 
the feathered tribe was more in evidence on the borders of the 
roads and the clearings than in the villages. The observations 
and collections of the botanist, too, were facilitated by the clear 
survey which the open country afforded. 
Wiese, Veriter and I, with the dwarfs, pitched a camp right 
in the interior of the forest, far from all human traffic, and for 
eight days roamed through the jungles. Without the dwarfs’ 
escort this would not have been practicable, as the only possible 
means of communication lay in the numerous elephant tracks, 
which would quickly have bewildered any white man. 
As we ascertained by inquiry, we were already within the 
zone of the okapi. The reader is, doubtless, no longer un- 
2 A 
