In Darkest Africa, Vol. 1; or, The Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of Equatoria

by Henry M. Stanley

On the next morning, after a march of an hour and a half along a tolerably good path, we emerged in front of an extensive clearing of about 240 acres. The trees were but recently cut. This marked the advent of a powerful tribe, or a late removal to new ground of old settlers of some numerical force, resolved upon securing many creature comforts. A captive woman of the Waburu led the way through the middle of this wide abattis, the very sight of which was appalling. An hour later we had crossed this, not without bruised shins and much trembling, and the path then led up an easy ascent up a prolonged span of a hill. The hollows on either side of it showed prodigious groves of plantains and many gardens, ill-kept, devoted to herbs and gourds. Within thirty minutes from the summit of the ascent we had reached an altitude that promised to give us shortly a more extended view than any we had been lately accustomed to, and we pressed gladly upwards, and soon entered a series of villages that followed the slope. A village of these parts always gave us a highway well trodden, from forty to sixty feet wide; in a series of this type of villages we should soon be able to pace a mile. We had passed through several fine separate long blocks of low structures, when the foremost of the advance guard was seen running swiftly down to meet me. He asked me to look towards the sunrise, and, turning my eyes in that direction, they were met by the gratifying sight of a fairly varied scene of pasture-land and forest, of level champaigns and grassy slopes of valleys and hills, rocky knolls and softly rounded eminences, a veritable "land of hills and valleys, that drinketh the rain of heaven." That the open country was well watered was 1887.
Nov. 30.
Bakwuru. indicated by the many irregular lines of woods which marked the courses of the streams, and by the clumps of trees, whose crowns just rose above their sloping banks.

The great forest in which we had been so long buried, and whose limits were in view, appeared to continue intact and unbroken to the N.E., but to the E. of it was an altogether different region of grassy meads and plains and hills, freely sprinkled with groves, clusters, and thin lines of trees up to certain ranges of hills that bounded the vision, and at whose base I knew must be the goal whither we had for months desired to reach.

VIEW OF MOUNT PISGAH FROM THE EASTWARD.

This, then, was the long promised view and the long expected exit out of gloom! Therefore I called the tall peak terminating the forested ridge, of which the spur whereon we stood was a part, and that rose two miles E. of us to a height of 4600 feet above the sea, Pisgah,—Mount Pisgah,—because, after 156 days of twilight in the primeval forest, we had first viewed the desired pasturelands of Equatoria.

The men crowded up the slope eagerly with inquiring open-eyed looks, which, before they worded their thoughts, we knew meant "Is it true? Is it no hoax? Can it be 1887.
Nov. 30.
Bakwuru. possible that we are near the end of this forest hell?" They were convinced themselves in a few moments after they had dropped their burdens, and regarded the view with wondering and delighted surprise.

"Aye, friends, it is true. By the mercy of God we are well nigh the end of our prison and dungeon!" They held their hands far out yearningly towards the superb land, and each looked up to the bright blue heaven in grateful worship, and after they had gazed as though fascinated, they recovered themselves with a deep sigh, and as they turned their heads, lo! the sable forest heaved away to the infinity of the west, and they shook their clenched hands at it with gestures of defiance and hate. Feverish from sudden exaltation, they apostrophised it for its cruelty to themselves and their kinsmen; they compared it to Hell, they accused it of the murder of one hundred of their comrades, they called it the wilderness of fungi and wood-beans; but the great forest which lay vast as a continent before them, and drowsy, like a great beast, with monstrous fur thinly veiled by vaporous exhalations, answered not a word, but rested in its infinite sullenness, remorseless and implacable as ever.

From S.E. to S. extended a range of mountains between 6,000 and 7,000 feet above the sea. One woman captive indicated S.E. as our future direction to the great water that "rolled incessantly on the shore with a booming noise, lifting and driving the sand before it," but as we were in S. Lat. 1°. 22', on the same parallel as Kavalli, our objective point, I preferred aiming east, straight towards it.

Old Boryo, chief of Ibwiri, had drawn with his hand a semicircle from S.E. to N.W. as the course of the Ituri River, and said that the river rose from a plain at the foot of a great hill, or a range of hills. To the S.E. of Pisgah we could see no plain, but a deep wooded valley, and unless our eyes deceived us, the forest seemed to ascend up the slopes of the range as far as its summits. Five months of travel in one continuous forest was surely experience enough; a change would therefore be agreeable, even if we varied but our hardships. This was another reason 1887.
Nov. 30.
Bakwuru. why I proposed to decline all advice upon the proper path leading to the "great water."

In the village of the Bakwuru, in which we now prepared to encamp, we found sleeveless vests of thick buffalo hide, which our men secured, as fitting armour against the arrows of the tribes of the grass land.