Day after day the miles were put behind them without any incidents of especial note. Pictures were taken at times, when the occasion warranted. But for several reasons both Mr. Ransome and his hosts were eager to reach the mysterious Mountains of the Moon which stand sentinel over the unexplored heart of the Dark Continent, and so little time was spent in picture-taking, any secured being obtained on the march, so to speak.
For one thing, Mr. Ransome was eager to gain the region about Lake Kivu and the Mountains of the Moon in order to learn as quickly as possible what was afoot amongst the natives, as disquieting rumors every now and again reached them of The Prophet’s activities. Evasive though these rumors were, it became increasingly apparent that The Prophet was someone of powerful personality who had obtained a great hold on the superstitious minds of the natives and who, if given sufficient time, might be able to unite the warlike and remote tribes under one head and cause serious trouble for the whites by swooping down on their scattered settlements and destroying even the railroad and steamship lines and other slim evidences of civilization in the Lake Victoria region which had been built up laboriously through the years.
For another, Mr. Hampton was anxious to reach the volcanic region while the craters, of which native report was more definite than regarding the activities of The Prophet, were still in eruption. A pictorial record of them would be something never before obtained and valuable in proportion. Besides, the great mountain region was reputed to be the home not only of elephants, buffalo, bush buck, cheetahs, leopards and lions, but also of the ferocious man-apes or gorillas.
To bag specimens of these animals both by gun and by camera would be the crowning achievement of the expedition.
Therefore, the party did not delay on the way but made each day’s march as long as possible. The more so were they content to do this as, after passing Kabale, a tiny frontier post in the mountains of Uganda, two weeks from Masaka, they entered a desolate volcanic region which had been laid waste by eruptions of lava in 1912 where little game was encountered.
By day, in fact, this region was plunged into a silence so uncanny as to affect the nerves of even the boys. For they were accustomed in their travel through central Africa to hear the jungle alive about them. Here long distances were covered where not even the hum of an insect or the call of a bird was to be heard. It was, in fact, as if they were passing through a dead region where even the ground beneath them was devoid of life.
Neither man nor animals were encountered, and glad, indeed, was every member of the party when at length they came to the edge of the mighty African Rift Valley and beheld below them the vast Mfumbiro Plain with craters breaking up the contour in every direction.
This was the region of the volcanoes, and after glimpsing smoking peaks in the distance all day as they approached, the boys now beheld from the edge of a precipice, below which was spread the great plain, three towering cones with smoke-wreathed summits. Whereas only occasional glimpses had been obtained heretofore, they now could observe the mountains from base to summit.
Never had any of them beheld a more awe-inspiring sight. And standing on the edge of a precipice which fell steeply away a matter of two thousand feet to the plain below, with those three smoking cones against the red sunset sky in the distance, they were speechless.
Presently, however, the necessity for making camp for the night appealed to Mr. Hampton, who called the boys away. Some distance back from the precipice, amidst the hard-wood trees of a small grove, where a spring of fresh sweet water burst from the ground to go tumbling down the rocks, the tents were set up and the bearers were disposed below, along the edge of the little stream.