Travels in West Africa eBook

but there is a distinction about it which is all its own.  This N.E.

end has beautiful sand beaches on the southern side, in front of the forested bank, lying in smooth ribbons along the level shore, and in scollops round the promontories where the hills come down into the lake.  The forest on these hills, or mountains—­for they are part of the Sierra del Cristal—­is very dark in colour, and the undergrowth seems scant.  We presently come to a narrow but deep channel into the lake coming from the eastward, which we go up, winding our course with it into a valley between the hills.  After going up it a little way we find it completely fenced across with stout stakes, a space being left open in the middle, broader than the spaces between the other stakes; and over this is poised a spear with a bush rope attached, and weighted at the top of the haft with a great lump of rock.  The whole affair is kept in position by a bush rope so arranged just under the level of the water that anything passing through the opening would bring the spear down.  This was a trap for hippo or manatee (Ngany ’imanga), and similar in structure to those one sees set in the hippo grass near villages and plantations, which serve the double purpose of defending the vegetable supply, and adding to the meat supply of the inhabitants.  We squeeze through between the stakes so as not to let the trap off, and find our little river leads us into another lake, much smaller than Ncovi.  It is studded with islands of fantastic shapes, all wooded with high trees of an equal level, and with little or no undergrowth among them, so their pale gray stems look like clusters of columns supporting a dark green ceiling.  The forest comes down steep hill sides to the water edge in all directions; and a dark gloomy-looking herb grows up out of black slime and water, in a bank or ribbon in front of it.  There is another channel out of this lake, still to the N.E.  The Fans say they think it goes into the big lake far far away, i.e., Lake Ayzingo.  From the look of the land, I think this river connecting Ayzingo and Lake Ncovi wanders down this valley between the mountain spurs of the Sierra del Cristal, expanding into one gloomy lake after another.  We run our canoe into a bank of the dank dark-coloured water herb to the right, and disembark into a fitting introduction to the sort of country we shall have to deal with before we see the Rembwe—­namely, up to our knees in black slime.

CHAPTER VIII.  FROM NCOVI TO ESOON.

Concerning the way in which the voyager goes from the island of M’fetta to no one knows exactly where, in doubtful and bad company, and of what this led to and giving also some accounts of the Great Forest and of those people that live therein.

I will not bore you with my diary in detail regarding our land journey, because the water-washed little volume attributive to this period is mainly full of reports of law cases, for reasons hereinafter to be stated; and at night, when passing through this bit of country, I was usually too tired to do anything more than make an entry such as:  “5 S., 4 R. A., N.E Ebony.  T. 1-50, etc., etc.”—­entries that require amplification to explain their significance, and I will proceed to explain.