WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE 
2 5 
the ‘ Quini ’ read this book?” he asks. “Yes,” you reply. “Then the Queen 
has seen my name?” and this reflection apparently causes him much satisfaction, 
for he repeats the observation to himself at intervals and even forces it on the 
attention of a sullen-looking black-browed Maskat Arab who is waiting in 
the baraza to settle with the Sultan the amount of tribute he must pay for 
the passage of his slave and ivory caravan across the territory and over the lake 
by means of the Sultan’s daus. 
I will transport you to the south end of Lake Tanganyika. 
In the background to this scene is a fine mountain which, like most Central 
African mountains, presents from below the appearance of a cake that has been 
MOUNT KAPEMBA, TANGANYIKA 
cut and is crumbling. There is first of all the granite wall of undulating out¬ 
line bearing a thin line of trees along its crest. Then half-way down its slope 
begins below the bare shining rock walls a ribbed slope of debris, which slope 
is covered with luxuriant purple-green forest: the whole estompe with a film of 
blue atmosphere, which sets it back to its proper place in the distance, so that 
if you half close your eyes the general effect of this mountain mass is a greyish 
purple. 
As if in abrupt contrast to this upreared mass of rocks and trees towering 
at least 4000 feet into the sky is a slice of bright green swamp, separating the 
mountain slopes from the lake water. The foreground to this picture is the 
broad estuary of a river at its entrance to Tanganyika. On your right hand 
