On the 22nd we were obliged to march for six hours through quagmire and reeking mud before we were enabled to find a resting-place. The dense forest, while as purely tropical in its luxuriance as any we had travelled, was more discomforting owing to its greater heat and over-abundant moisture. The excessive humidity revealed itself in a thin, opaque, damp haze just above us. In the tree-tops it had already gathered into a mist; above them it was a cloud; so that between us and sunshine we had clouds several miles in thickness, the thick, dark, matted foliage of the forest, then thickening layers of mist, and finally a haze of warm vapour. We therefore picked our way through shallow pool and gluey black mud, under a perpetual dropping of condensed vapour, and by a leaden light that would encourage thoughts of suicide, while bodily distress was evinced by trickling rillets of perspiration.
Emerging into a ruined village, the result of some late raid of the Wara Sura, we threw looks towards Ruwenzori, but the old mountain had disappeared under blue-black clouds that reminded one of brooding tempests. The heights of Mboga were dimly visible, though they were further from us than the stupendous mass behind which the thunder muttered, and whence rain seemed imminent. We began to realize that we were in the centre of a great fermenting vat, and that the exhalations growing out of it concentrated themselves into clouds, and that the latter hung in ever-thickening folds until they floated against the face of Ruwenzori; that they languidly ascended the slants and clung to the summits, until a draught of wind over the snow-crests blew them away and cleared the view.
We passed through an extremely populous district the next day, and travelled only two and a quarter hours to reach Baki Kundi. Flanking the path were familiar features, such as several camps of pigmies, who were here called Watwa.
The distance from the Semliki to these villages wherein we were now encamped is 15½ English miles, which we had taken three days to travel, and two days’ halt in consequence. But slow as this was, and supplied as was the caravan with running streams of good water and unlimited quantities of meat and grain, potatoes, plantains, and ripe fruit, the misery of African travel had been realised to its depths. Mothers had left their little children on the road, and one Egyptian soldier, named Hamdan, had laid down by the wayside and stubbornly refused to move, unwilling to pursue the journey of life further. He had no load to carry, he was not sick, but he—what can be said? He belonged to the donkey breed of humanity; he could not travel, but he could die, and the rear-guard were obliged to leave him. This started a rumour through the camp that the commander of the rear-guard had quietly despatched him.
1889.
May 24.
Baki-Kundi.
The 24th of May was a halt, and we availed ourselves of it to despatch two companies to trace the paths, that I might obtain a general idea which would best suit our purposes. One company took a road leading slightly east of south, and suddenly came across a few Baundwe, whom we knew for real forest aborigines. This was in itself a discovery, for we had supposed we were still in Utuku, as the east side of the Semliki is called, and which is under Kabba Rega’s rule. The language of the Baundwe was new, but they understood a little Kinyoro, and by this means we learned that Ruwenzori was known to them as Bugombowa, and that the Watwa pigmies and the Wara Sura were their worst enemies, and that the former were scattered through the woods to the W.S.W.
The other company travelled in a S. by W. direction, reached the thin line of open country that divided the immediate base-line of Ruwenzori from the forest. They spoke in raptures of the abundance of food, but stated that the people were hostile and warlike. The arms of the men were similar to those of other forest people, but the women were distinguished for iron collars, to which were suspended small phial-shaped pendants of hollow iron, besides those ending in fine spiral coils at the extremities.
