2 34 
Return to the Plateau. 
it. The natives showed me the liana which 
they described, still lying on the poles of the 
broken corral. Mr. Preston, of the Gaboon Mis¬ 
sion, who first noticed it, and Mr. Wilson, who 
gives an illustration of the scene (p. 363), declares 
that the creeper is drawn around the herd when 
browsing; that as long as the animals are un¬ 
molested they will not dash through the magic 
circle, and that the fence of uprights is constructed 
outside it. The same tale is told of all the wild 
elephant-hunters in the interior, the Bati the 
Okana, the Yefa, and the Sensoba. 
Arrived at Tippet-town, I gave my ‘‘dashes,” 
chiefly brass and copper rods, bade an affectionate 
farewell, and then dropped down stream without 
further ceremony. I had been disappointed a 
second time in re gorilla, and nothing now re¬ 
mained but a retreat, which time rendered neces- 
' sary. The down-stream voyage was an easy 
matter, and it need hardly be said far less un¬ 
pleasant than the painful toil up. From the 
Sanjika village on the Gaboon, the “ Tern” hill 
was seen bearing due east (Mag.) and the Mbika 
92 0 . Behind them were glimpses of blue high¬ 
land, rising in lumpy and detached masses to the 
east; these are evidently sub-ranges of the western 
Ghats, the Sierra del Crystal, which native 
travellers described to me as a serrated broken 
line of rocky and barren acicular mountains; tall, 
