we had intended, on leaving the nile where it turns northward at mruli, to march directly across to hoima, on the albert lake; and this journey, by way of masindi, would have required four marches. but tales of the beauty and wonder of the murchison falls had captivated my mind, and before embarking at kakindu a new plan had been resolved. runners were sent back to the telegraph wire at jinja, and thence a message was flashed by kampala to hoima, directing the flotilla which awaited us there, to steam to the north end of the albert and meet us by the foot of the murchison falls at fajao. thither we were now to proceed by five marches—two to masindi and three more turning northward to the nile.
the road from mruli consists of a sort of embanked track through low-lying and desolate 149 scrub and jungle. the heavy black cotton soil, cracked and granulated by the heat, offered at this time a hardened if uneven surface to the bicycle; but in the rains such paths must become utterly impassable. as one advances westward the country improves rapidly in aspect. the dismal flats of the south chioga shore are left behind, and the traveller discovers more characteristic uganda scenery in a region of small hills and great trees. before masindi is reached we are again in a rich and beautiful land. pools of shining water, set in verdant green, flash back the sunbeams. bold bluffs and ridges rise on all sides from amid the unceasing undulations of the ground. streams plash merrily downwards through rocky channels. the yellow grass roofs of frequent villages peep from underneath their groves of bananas among broad streaks of cultivated ground, and chiefs and headmen salute the stranger with grave yet curious politeness as the long "safari" winds beneath the trees.
the heat grows as the altitude dwindles, and even in the early morning the sun sits hard and heavy on the shoulders. at ten o'clock its power is tremendous. so long as the 150 roadway consisted of nobbly lumps of black cotton soil bicycling, though possible in places, was scarcely pleasant. but the change in the landscape arises from the change in the soil. the fields are now of bright red earth, the paths of red sandstone washed in places almost as smooth and as firm as asphalt by the rains and sparkling with crystalline dust; and when the ridges which form the watershed between lake chioga and lake albert had been topped, my bicycle glided almost without impulsion down four miles of gradual descent into masindi. this station—which is the residence of a collector—lies embosomed in a wide bay of gently-sloping hills clothed with noble trees. it is indeed a pleasant spot. there are real houses, standing on high stone platforms, with deep verandas and wire gauze windows. the roads are laid out in bold geometry of broad red lines. there are avenues of planted trees, delicious banks of flowers, a prepared breakfast, cold, not cool, drinks, a telegraph office, and a file of the times. what more could an explorer desire or the fates accord?
we were now to strike northwards to the nile at fajao in three long marches (for the 151 porters) of about sixteen miles each. upon the hoima road some preparations had been made to make the journey easier by clearing the encroaching jungle from the track and constructing rest-houses. but my change of plan had disconcerted these arrangements, and on the new route we had to clear our own paths from the overgrowth by which even in a season, if unused, they are choked, and to trust to tents and improvised shelters. progress was therefore slow and camps unpretentious. but all was redeemed by the wonders of the scene.
for a whole day we crept through the skirts of the hoima forest, amid an exuberance of vegetation which is scarcely describable. i had travelled through tropical forests in cuba and india, and had often before admired their enchanting, yet sinister, luxuriance. but the forests of uganda, for magnificence, for variety of form and colour, for profusion of brilliant life—plant, bird, insect, reptile, beast—for the vast scale and awful fecundity of the natural processes that are beheld at work, eclipsed, and indeed effaced, all previous impressions. one becomes, not without a secret sense of aversion, the 152 spectator of an intense convulsion of life and death. reproduction and decay are locked struggling in infinite embraces. in this glittering equatorial slum huge trees jostle one another for room to live; slender growths stretch upwards—as it seems in agony—towards sunlight and life. the soil bursts with irrepressible vegetations. every victor, trampling on the rotting mould of exterminated antagonists, soars aloft only to encounter another host of aerial rivals, to be burdened with masses of parasitic foliage, smothered in the glorious blossoms of creepers, laced and bound and interwoven with interminable tangles of vines and trailers. birds are as bright as butterflies; butterflies are as big as birds. the air hums with flying creatures; the earth crawls beneath your foot. the telegraph-wire runs northward to gondokoro through this vegetable labyrinth. even its poles had broken into bud!
as we advanced, continually rising or falling with the waves of the land, and moving in rapid alternations from a blazing patch of sunshine into a cloistered dimness, every now and then the path became smooth, broad, and of firm sandstone. and here one could watch 153 the columns of marching soldier-ants. perhaps in a hundred yards the road would be crossed four times by these fierce armies. they move in regular array, and upon purposes at once inscrutable and unswerving. a brown band, perhaps two inches broad and an inch and a half deep, is drawn across your track. its ends are lost in the recesses of the jungle. it moves unceasingly and with a multiplied rapidity; for each ant runs swiftly forward, whether upon the ground or upon the backs of his already moving comrades. about a yard away, on each side of the main column, are the screening lines of the flank-guards, and for five yards beyond this every inch is searched, every object is examined by tireless and fearless reconnoitring patrols. woe to the enemy who is overtaken by these hordes. no matter what his size or nature, he is attacked at once by an ever-increasing number of assailants, each one of whom, upon remorseless instinct, plunges his strong mandibles in the flesh, and will have his head pulled off his shoulders rather than let go.
these ant armies fascinated me. i could not resist interfering with them. with my walking-stick i gently broke the column and 154 pushed the swarming rope off its line of march. their surprise, their confusion, their indignation were extreme. but not for an instant did they pause. in a second the scouts were running all over my boots eagerly seeking an entry, and when i looked back from this to the walking-stick i held it was already alive. with a gesture so nimble that it might have been misunderstood, i cast it from me and jumped back out of the danger circle until i found refuge on a large rock at a respectful distance. the soudanese sergeant-major of the escort, a splendid negro, drilled as smart as a grenadier guardsman and with a good long row of medal ribbons on his khaki tunic, so far forgot himself as to grin from ear to ear. but his gravity was fully restored when i invited him to rescue my walking-stick, which lay abandoned on the field in the mandibles of the victorious enemy. the devoted man was, however, equal to the crisis.
i have a sad tale also to tell of the perversity of butterflies. never were seen such flying fairies. they flaunted their splendid liveries in inconceivable varieties of colour and pattern in our faces at every step. swallow-tails, 155 fritillaries, admirals, tortoise-shells, peacocks, orange-tips—all executed in at least a dozen novel and contrasted styles, with many even more beautiful, but bearing no resemblance to our british species—flitted in sunshine from flower to flower, glinted in the shadow of great trees, or clustered on the path to suck the moisture from any swampy patch. the butterfly is a dirty feeder, and if ever some piece of putrescent filth lay odorous on the ground, be sure it would be covered with a cloud of these greedy insects, come in such gay attire to eat such sorry meat. i found them sometimes so intoxicated with feasting that i could pick them up quite gently in my fingers without the need of any net at all.
to any one who has ever tried to collect the modest and now all too rare and scattered butterflies of britain, these sights could not but be a hard temptation. for a week i had resisted it, not because it was not easy enough to make a net, but because of the difficulty of setting and preserving the prizes; and it was not until the end of our first day's march out from masindi that i was told that much the best way of sending butterflies home from africa was to enclose 156 them in neatly-folded triangles of paper and leave them to be set in london. forthwith, out of telegraph-wire and mosquito-curtain, a net was made, and before another dawn i was fully equipped. it is almost incredible to state that from that very moment, except near the murchison falls, i scarcely ever saw a really fine butterfly again all the way to gondokoro. whether this was due to the intelligent perversity of these insects, or to the fact that we had left the deeper recesses of the forest region, i do not inquire; but the fact remains, and i carry away from the butterflies of uganda only the haunting memories of unrealized opportunity.
this first day's march from masindi was a long one, and our porters panted and toiled under their loads through the heat of the day. it was not till the afternoon that the main body came into camp, and stragglers trickled through into the dusk. meanwhile the local natives built under our eyes, with extraordinary speed and cleverness, a spacious dining-hall and two or three quite excellent bedrooms from the surrounding elephant-grass and bamboo groves; and we fared as comfortably in these two humble dwellings as if we dwelt in kings' 157 palaces. the forest was a little thinner on the second day, although the jungle was of the same dense and tangled fertility. we started an hour before sunrise, and by eight o'clock had climbed to the saddle of the high rocky wall which contains the valley of the victoria nile. from this elevation of, perhaps, six hundred feet above the general level of the plain a comprehensive view of the landscape was for the first time possible. in every direction spread a wide sea of foliage, thinning here into bush, darkening there into forest, rising and falling with the waves of the land, and broken only by occasional peaks of rock. far away to the north-west a long silver gleam, just discernible through the haze of the horizon, revealed to our eyes the distant prospect of the albert nyanza. the camera cannot do justice to such a panorama. in photographs these vast expanses look like mere scrubby commons, inhospitable and monotonous to the eye, melancholy to the soul. one has to remember that here are kew gardens and the zoo combined on an unlimited scale; that nature's central productive laboratory is here working night and day at full blast; and that the scrubby common 158 of the picture is really a fairyland of glades and vistas, through which an army of a hundred thousand men might march without the glint of a bayonet, or even the dust of an artillery column, betraying their presence to the watcher on the crag.
our camp this night lay in a tiny patch cleared in the heart of this wild world. the cluster of tents under a canopy of palms, illumined by the watch-fires, bright with lanterns, and busy with the moving figures of men and the hum of human activity, seemed at a hundred yards' distance an island of society amid an ocean of nature. to what strange perils—apart altogether from the certainty of losing your way—would a walk of a quarter of a mile in any direction expose the wanderer? to withdraw from the firelight was to be engulfed in the savage conditions of prehistoric time. advance, and the telegraph-wire would tell you the latest quotations of the london markets, the figures of the newest by-election. an odd sensation!
murchison falls.
we had scarce proceeded for an hour on our third march, when just as it grew daylight a low vibrant murmur began to be perceptible in the air. now it was lost as we descended 159 into some moist valley, now it broke even more strongly on the ear as we reached the summit of some ascent—the sound of the nile plunging down the murchison falls. and by nine o'clock, when we were still about ten miles off, a loud, insistent, and unceasing hum had developed. these falls are certainly the most remarkable in the whole course of the nile. at foweira the navigable reaches stretching from lake chioga are interrupted by cataracts, and the river hurries along in foam and rapid down a gradual but continuous stairway, enclosed by rocky walls, but still a broad flood. two miles above fajao these walls contract suddenly till they are not six yards apart, and through this strangling portal, as from the nozzle of a hose, the whole tremendous river is shot in one single jet down an abyss of a hundred and sixty feet.
the escarpment over which the nile falls curves away in a vast bay of precipitous, or almost precipitous, cliffs, broken here and there by more gradual rifts, and forms the eastern wall of the albert lake, from whose waters it rises abruptly in many places to a height of six or seven hundred feet. arrived at the verge of this descent, the lower reaches of the 160 victoria nile could be discerned, stretching away mile after mile in a broad, gleaming ribbon almost to its mouth on the lake. the falls themselves were, indeed, invisible, concealed behind a forested bluff, but their roaring left no doubt of their presence. below me a zigzag path led down by long descents to the water's edge, and on an open meadow a row of tents and grass houses had already been set up.
fajao as a native town was no more. at hardly any point in uganda has the sleeping sickness made such frightful ravages. at least six thousand persons had perished in the last two years. almost the whole population had been swept away. scarcely enough remained to form the deputation, who, in their white robes, could be distinguished at the entrance to the cleared area of the camping-ground. and this cleared area was itself of the utmost importance; for all around it the powers of evil were strong. the groves which fringed and overhung the river swarmed with tsetse flies of newly-replenished venom and approved malignity, and no man could enter them except at a risk. after pausing for a few minutes to watch a troop of baboons who 161 were leaping about from tree to tree on the opposite hill, and who seemed as big as men, i climbed down the zigzag, photographed the deputation, and shook hands with the chief. he was a very civilized chief—by name james kago—who wore riding-breeches and leather gaiters, and who spoke a few unexpected sentences of excellent english. he seemed in the best of spirits, and so did the remnant of the population who gathered behind him, though whether this was due to stoical philosophy or good manners, i could not tell. all was smiles and bows and gurglings of guttural gratification. the district officer who had travelled with me explained that the chief had had the path up to the top of the falls improved, and that he proposed, after we had lunched and rested, to guide us along it to the very edge of the abyss, but that the forest along the river-bank was so dangerous because of the tsetses that we should in prudence wear veils and gloves before entering it. with all of this i made no quarrel.
fajao, with natives assembled to welcome us.
in a little rocky inlet forming a small natural harbour we found the albert flotilla already arrived. it consisted of the kenia, a steam-launch about forty feet long, decked, 162 and with a cabin, and drawing four feet of water, and three steel sailing-boats of different sizes—to wit, the james martin, the good intent, and the kisingiri. these small vessels were to carry us down the victoria nile into the albert nyanza, across the top end of this lake, and then down the hundred and seventy miles' reach of the white nile till navigation is barred at nimule by more cataracts. they were manned by a crew of jolly swahili tars smartly dressed in white breeches and blue jerseys, on whose breasts the words "uganda marine" were worked in yellow worsted. the engineer of the steam-launch commanded the whole with plenary powers of discipline and diplomacy; and it was by means of this little group of cock-boats that trade and communications with the nile province and around the whole of lake albert were alone maintained. the flotilla, nestling together in its harbour and sheltered by a rocky breakwater from the swift current, made a pretty picture; and behind it the nile, streaked and often covered with the creamy foam of the falls, swept along in majestic flood six hundred yards from brim to brim.
flotilla at fajao.
we began our climb to the summit of the 163 falls in the blazing heat of the day, and for the first time i was forced to confess the central african sun as formidable as that which beats on the plains of india. yet even at the worst moments it is more endurable, for the breeze does not stifle you with the breath of a furnace. first the path led through the deadly groves; and here, of course, the most beautiful butterflies—some five inches across the wings—floated tantalizingly. sometimes we descended to where the river lapped along the rocks and curled in eddies under floating islands of froth. precautions were required against diverse dangers. the nile below the murchison falls swarms with crocodiles, some of an enormous size, and herds of hippopotamus are found every half mile or so; so that, what with the rifles which it was necessary to take for great beasts, and the gloves and veils which were our protection against even more villainous small ones, we were painfully encumbered. indeed, the veils were such a nuisance and the heat was so great that i resolved to hazard the tsetse and took mine off. but after half an hour of menacing buzzings, and after a fly—presumably of the worst character—had actually settled 164 on my shoulder, brushed off by the promptness of my companion, i changed my mind again.
as we were thus scrambling along the brink of the river a crocodile was discovered basking in the sunshine on a large rock in mid-stream, about a hundred and fifty yards from the shore. i avow, with what regrets may be necessary, an active hatred of these brutes and a desire to kill them. it was a tempting shot, for the ruffian lay sleeping in the sun-blaze, his mouth wide open and his fat and scaly flanks exposed. two or three attendant white birds hopped about him, looking for offal, which i have been assured (and does not herodotus vouch for it?) they sometimes pick from his very teeth. i fired. what the result of the shot may have been i do not know, for the crocodile gave one leap of mortal agony or surprise and disappeared in the waters. but then it was my turn to be astonished. the river at this distance from the falls was not broader than three hundred yards, and we could see the whole shore of the opposite bank quite plainly. it had hitherto appeared to be a long brown line of mud, on which the sun shone dully. at the sound of the 165 shot the whole of this bank of the river, over the extent of at least a quarter of a mile, sprang into hideous life, and my companions and i saw hundreds and hundreds of crocodiles, of all sorts and sizes, rushing madly into the nile, whose waters along the line of the shore were lashed into white foam, exactly as if a heavy wave had broken. it could be no exaggeration to say that at least a thousand of these saurians had been disturbed at a single shot. our british friends explained that fajao was the favourite haunt of the crocodiles, who lay in the water below the falls waiting for dead fish and animals carried over by the river. very often, they told us, hippos from the upper river and from lake chioga were caught and swept downwards, the force of the water "breaking every bone in their body." "indeed," added the officer, somewhat obscurely, "they are very lucky if they are not smashed into pulp."
the top of the murchison falls.
uganda scenery.
at length we turned a corner and came face to face with the falls. they are wonderful to behold, not so much because of their height—though that is impressive—but because of the immense volume of water which is precipitated through such a narrow 166 outlet. indeed, seeing the great size of the river below the falls, it seemed impossible to believe that it was wholly supplied from this single spout. in clouds of rainbow spray and amid thunderous concussions of sound we set to work to climb the southern side of the rock wall, and after an hour achieved the summit. it was possible to walk to within an inch of the edge and, lying on one's face with a cautious head craned over, to look actually down upon the foaming hell beneath. the narrowness of the gorge at the top had not been overstated. i doubt whether it is fifteen feet across from sheer rock to sheer rock. ten pounds, in fact, would throw an iron bridge across the nile at this point. but it is evident that the falling waters must have arched and caved away the rock below their surface in an extraordinary degree, for otherwise there could not possibly be room for the whole river to descend.
we waited long at this strange place, watching the terrible waters, admiring their magnificent fury, trying to compute their force. who can doubt that the bridle is preparing which shall hold and direct their strength, or that the day will come when forlorn 167 fajao—now depopulated and almost derelict—will throb with the machinery of manufacture and electric production? i cannot believe that modern science will be content to leave these mighty forces untamed, unused, or that regions of inexhaustible and unequalled fertility, capable of supplying all sorts of things that civilized industry needs in greater quantity every year, will not be brought—in spite of their insects and their climate—into cultivated subjection. certain it is that the economy of the world remains hopelessly incomplete while these neglects prevail, and, while it would be wasteful and foolish to hustle, it would be more wasteful and more foolish to abate the steady progress of development.
from these reflections i was roused abruptly by the nile, a wave of whose turbulent waters—cast up by some unusual commotion as they approached the verge—boiled suddenly over a ledge of rock hitherto high and dry, carrying an ugly and perhaps indignant swish of water to my very feet.
