CHAPTER IX 
IN THE SHADE OF THE VIRGIN FOREST 
We started on our journey to the west on the ist of Aprils 1908, 
by a route which has gained sad notoriety in the history of 
African exploration. We followed a path almost identical with 
that which Stanley traversed and on which he experienced the 
greatest hardships and privations in coming from the Congo to 
the succour of Emin Pasha, who, cut off by the Mahdi revolt, 
lived practically a prisoner in his equatorial province. The same 
vast forest, so gloomily described in the pages of “In Darkest 
Africa,” lay before us. This darksome forest, indeed, with its 
storms and rains, famine, disease and deadly attacks, nearly 
proved fatal to the whole caravan and reduced it to a condition 
of utter desperation and madness. The first patch of green 
grass appeared to us as a token and promise, as the olive branch 
in the mouth of the dove did to Noah of old. 
We were travelling along paths which had already been 
made; we knew in advance where we should lay our heads to 
rest from day to day ; we were well supplied with stores; we 
journeyed more comfortably here than we did at first in the steppe 
country, or in the volcanic region, and yet we experienced that 
oppressiveness which is always felt in this gigantic forest. The 
conditions of travelling alone were different; the forest remained 
the same in its immeasurable and inexorable lonesomeness. 
The departure took place under inauspicious conditions in 
streaming rain, which had set in violently during the night, 
though unaccompanied by lightning, and had compelled many 
of us to wander about with our beds as the water penetrated the 
houses. The confusion usually in evidence when quarters occu- 
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