It Had Been Made To Go To A Clearing, Where
Ambitious Agricultural Operations Were Being Inaugurated, When Herr
Liebert Hurt His Foot.
Up this we go, it is semi-vertical while it
lasts, and it ends in a scrubby patch that
Is to be a plantation;
this crossed we are in the Urwald, and it is more exquisite than
words can describe, but not good going, particularly at one spot
where a gigantic tree has fallen down across a little rocky ravine,
and has to be crawled under. It occurs to me that this is a highly
likely place for snakes and an absolutely sure find for scorpions,
and when we have passed it three of these latter interesting
creatures are observed on the load of blankets which is fastened on
to the back of Kefalla. We inform Kefalla of the fact on the spot.
A volcanic eruption of entreaty, advice, and admonition results, but
we still hesitate. However, the gallant cook tackles them in a sort
of tip-cat way with a stick, and we proceed into a patch of long
grass, beyond which there is a reach of amomums. The winged amomum
I see here in Africa for the first time. Horrid slippery things
amomum sticks to walk on, when they are lying on the ground; and
there is a lot of my old enemy the calamus about.
On each side are deep forested dells and ravines, and rocks show up
through the ground in every direction, and things in general are
slippery, and I wonder now and again, as I assume with unnecessary
violence a recumbent position, why I came to Africa; but patches of
satin-leaved begonias and clumps of lovely tree-ferns reconcile me
to my lot. Cook does not feel these forest charms, and gives me
notice after an hour's experience of mountain forest-belt work; what
cook would not?
As we get higher we have to edge and squeeze every few minutes
through the aerial roots of some tremendous kind of tree, plentiful
hereabouts. One of them we passed through I am sure would have run
any Indian banyan hard for extent of ground covered, if it were
measured. In the region where these trees are frequent, the
undergrowth is less dense than it is lower down.
Imagine a vast, seemingly limitless cathedral with its countless
columns covered, nay, composed of the most exquisite dark-green,
large-fronded moss, with here and there a delicate fern embedded in
it as an extra decoration. The white, gauze-like mist comes down
from the upper mountain towards us: creeping, twining round, and
streaming through the moss-covered tree columns - long bands of it
reaching along sinuous, but evenly, for fifty and sixty feet or
more, and then ending in a puff like the smoke of a gun. Soon,
however, all the mist-streams coalesce and make the atmosphere all
their own, wrapping us round in a clammy, chill embrace; it is not
that wool-blanket, smothering affair that we were wrapped in down by
Buana, but exquisitely delicate. The difference it makes to the
beauty of the forest is just the same difference you would get if
you put a delicate veil over a pretty woman's face or a sack over
her head. In fact, the mist here was exceedingly becoming to the
forest's beauty. Now and again growls of thunder roll out from, and
quiver in the earth beneath our feet. Mungo is making a big
tornado, and is stirring and simmering it softly so as to make it
strong. I only hope he will not overdo it, as he does six times in
seven, and make it too heavy to get out on to the Atlantic, where
all tornadoes ought to go. If he does the thing will go and burst
on us in this forest to-night.
The forest now grows less luxuriant though still close - we have left
the begonias and the tree-ferns, and are in another zone. The trees
now, instead of being clothed in rich, dark-green moss, are heavily
festooned with long, greenish-white lichen. It pours with rain.
At last we reach the place where the sergeant says we ought to camp
for the night. I have been feeling the time for camping was very
ripe for the past hour, and Kefalla openly said as much an hour and
a half ago, but he got such scathing things said to him about
civilians' legs by the sergeant that I did not air my own opinion.
We are now right at the very edge of the timber belt. My head man
and three boys are done to a turn. If I had had a bull behind me or
Mr. Fildes in front, I might have done another five or seven miles,
but not more.
The rain comes down with extra virulence as soon as we set to work
to start the fire and open the loads. I and Peter have great times
getting out the military camp-bed from its tight, bolster-like case,
while Kefalla gives advice, until, being irritated by the bed's
behaviour, I blow up Kefalla and send him to chop firewood.
However, we get the thing out and put up after cutting a place clear
to set it on; owing to the world being on a stiff slant hereabouts,
it takes time to make it stand straight. I get four stakes cut, and
drive them in at the four corners of the bed, and then stretch over
it Herr von Lucke's waterproof ground-sheet, guy the ends out to
pegs with string, feel profoundly grateful to both Herr Liebert for
the bed and Herr von Lucke for the sheet, and place the baggage
under the protection of the German Government's two belongings.
Then I find the boys have not got a fire with all their fuss, and I
have to demonstrate to them the lessons I have learnt among the Fans
regarding fire-making.
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