Never Shall I Forget The Exceeding Beauty Of That Valley,
The Foliage Of The Trees Round Us, The Delicate Wreaths
And festoons
of climbing plants, the graceful delicate plumes of the palm trees,
interlacing among each other, and showing through
All a background
of soft, pale, purple-blue mountains and forest, not really far
away, as the practised eye knew, but only made to look so by the
mist, which has this trick of giving suggestion of immense space
without destroying the beauty of detail. Those African misty
forests have the same marvellous distinctive quality that Turner
gives one in his greatest pictures. I am no artist, so I do not
know exactly what it is, but I see it is there. I luxuriated in the
exquisite beauty of that valley, little thinking or knowing what
there was in it besides beauty, as Allah "in mercy hid the book of
fate." On we went among the ferns and flowers until we met a swamp,
a different kind of swamp to those we had heretofore met, save the
little one last mentioned. This one was much larger, and a gem of
beauty; but we had to cross it. It was completely furnished with
characteristic flora. Fortunately when we got to its edge we saw a
woman crossing before us, but unfortunately she did not take a fancy
to our appearance, and instead of staying and having a chat about
the state of the roads, and the shortest way to N'dorko, she bolted
away across the swamp.
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