The troopship has arrived at the Diakhallémé outlet, and is approaching the wide entrance to the river.
The land there is as flat as Senegal, but its natural characteristics are different. With it begins a region where the leaves never fall.
The whole country is covered with wonderful verdure, a verdure already equatorial, a verdure that never dies—an emerald green whose vividness is never matched by that of our own trees, even in the radiant month of June.
Further than the eye can see there is nothing but this one interminable forest, of an unvarying flatness, mirrored in the warm, stagnant water, an unhealthy forest whose damp soil teems with reptiles.
XXIV
In this country, too, there was a melancholy stillness, yet it was restful to eyes accustomed to those desert sands.
At the village of Poupoubal on the Diakhallémé the vessel halted, unable to sail further up the river.
The passengers disembarked and waited for the canoes or pirogues which were to convey them to their destination.