RUWENZORI: THE CLOUD-KING.
Recent travellers who have failed to see this range--Its classical
history--The range of mountains viewed from Pisgah by us in
1887--The twin cones and snowy mountain viewed by us in 1888 and
January 1889--Description of the range--The Semliki valley--A fair
figurative description of Ruwenzori--The principal drainage of the
snowy range--The luxurious productive region known as Awamba forest
or the Semliki valley--Shelter from the winds--Curious novelties in
plants in Awamba forest--The plains between Mtsora and
Muhamba--Changes of climate and vegetation on nearing the hills
constituting the southern flank of Ruwenzori--The north-west and
west side of Ruwenzori--Emotions raised in us at the sight of
Ruwenzori--The reason why so much snow is retained on
Ruwenzori--The ascending fields of snow and great tracts of
_débris_--Brief views of the superb Rain-Creator or
Cloud-King--Impression made on all of us by the skyey crests and
snowy breasts of Ruwenzori.
[Sidenote: 1889.
June.
Ruwenzori.]
After the stories of the days of old, let us proceed to depict the
Ruwenzori range--which is the modern African term among the principal
tribes of the Lake regions for what was called Montes Lunae or Mons Lune
by the classical and European geographers, and by the Arab compilers of
travels as Jebel Kumr--Gumr, or Kammar--the Mountains of the Moon--as it
was seen by us. Several centuries have passed away since it was last
seen by any one capable of communicating an intelligent account of his
travels, and it may be many years will elapse before it is again seen by
any English-speaking explorer. The Nile route is closed for many a day
to come: the advance of the Manyuema, already spreading out far along
the West like an immense line of skirmishers, destroying and slaying as
they march eastward and northward, renders it very doubtful whether
subsistence would be found for an Expedition from the west; the ferocity
and number of the Wara Sura, and the treacherous character of the
Wanyoro, make it very certain that only a powerful force can ever be
able to pass through Toro; and the shifting events transpiring in
Uganda, which influence Uddu and Ankori, suggest a doubt, whether, in
defiance of Uganda, the south-east route would be practicable; and the
eastern route also presents serious difficulties. For these, as well as
for other reasons, such as the failure of so many modern travellers--Sir
Samuel and Lady Baker, Gessi Pasha, Mason Bey in 1877, our own
Expedition in 1887, and Emin Pasha in 1888--to see what ought to have
been seen, it is quite necessary that a more detailed description should
be given of this range.
It is quite a mysterious fact that from the localities reached by Sir
Samuel Baker, Ruwenzori ought to have been as visible as St. Paul’s dome
from Westminster Bridge. And any person steaming round the Lake Albert,
as Gessi Pasha and Mason Bey did, would be within easy view of the snow
mountains--provided, of course, that they were not obscured by the dense
clouds and depths of mist under which for about 300 days of the year the
great mountain range veils its colossal crown.
Then, again, its classical history: the fables that have been woven
about it; its relation to the dear old Nile, the time-honoured Nile--the
Nile of the Pharaohs, of Joseph, Moses, and the Prophets; its being the
source whence so many springs of the Nile issue--its being the creator
of the “Sea of Darkness,” Lake Albert Edward, from whose bosom the
Semliki--Nile to the West, and the infant Kafur to the East--emerge, to
feed the Albert on one hand and the Victoria Nile on the other; the very
mountain before whose shrine Alexander and Cæsar would have
worshipped--if the poets may be believed; its rare appearance out of the
night-black clouds; its sudden and mysterious apparition on a large
portion of that “illimitable lake” of a modern traveller; its quaint
title--the Mountains of the Moon, so often sought in vain; its massive
and rugged grandeur, and immense altitude: all these explain why
Ruwenzori demands more than a brief notice. Who that has gazed on the
Bernese Oberland for the first time will ever forget the impression? In
my twenty-two years of African travel both discovery and spectacle were
unique, and its total unexpectedness of appearance, as well as its own
interesting character and history, appeal to me to describe as clearly
as possible, and with some detail, what we saw.
While proceeding towards Lake Albert, in December, 1887, we obtained a
view from Pisgah of a long range of mountains, wooded to the summits,
which we estimated to be about 7,000 to 8,000 feet in height. It lay
from S.E. to S. On returning from the Lake, the same month, two enormous
truncate cones suddenly appeared into view, bearing S. ½. They might, we
believed, be between 10,000 and 12,000 feet high. They were called the
Twin Cones, and we thought them remarkable features. The sight of them
suggested that in their neighbourhood, or between them and the Gordon
Bennett Mountain, would be found an interesting country.
When returning to the Nyanza for the second time in April, 1888, the
Twin Cones were invisible; but on the 25th of May, 1888, when scarcely
two hours’ march from the Lake beach, lo! a stupendous snowy mountain
appeared, bearing 215° magnetic--an almost square-browed central
mass--about thirty miles in length, and quite covered with snow; situate
between two great ridges of about 5,000 feet less elevation, which
extended to about thirty miles on either side of it. On that day it was
visible for hours. On surmounting the table-land, the next day or so, it
had disappeared. Not a trace of either Twin Cones or Snowy Mountain was
in view.
On returning for the third time to the Nyanza, in January, 1889, and
during our long stay at Kavalli for two and a half months, it was
unseen, until suddenly casting our eyes, as usual, towards that point
where it ought to be visible, the entire length of the range burst out
of the cloudy darkness, and gratified over a thousand pairs of anxious
eyes that fixed their gaze upon the singular and magnificent scene.
The upper part of the range, now divided distinctly into many
square-browed peaks, seemed poised aloft in a void of surprising
clearness, domed by a dark blue heaven as clear and spotless as crystal,
and a broad zone of milk-white mist enfolding it in the middle caused it
to resemble a spectral mountain isle sailing in mid-air--to realize a
dream of an Isle of the Blest. As the sun descended westerly the misty
zone drifted away, and the floating apparition became fixed to nether
regions of mountain slopes, and the sharply-cut outlines and broader
details might be easily traced through the binoculars. Though we were
nearly eighty miles off, we could even see ridgy fringes and tufted
clumps of trees, resting on broad ledges, or on mountain spires, or
coping some turret-like crag, which leaned over profound depths below.
We even agreed that the colour of the bare rock casques fronting the
glare of the sun, and which were aligned against the lucent blue beyond,
were of a purplish brown. We saw that the side presented to our view was
singularly steep and probably unscaleable, and that though the snowy
fields seemed to be mere patches, yet many feathery stretches descended
far below the summit of a bare ridge which intervened between the
central range and the Balegga Hills, twelve miles from us, over whose
summit, Ruwenzori, sixty-five miles further, loomed large and grand.
It will then be understood that a transparent atmosphere is very rare in
this region, and that had our stay been as short as that of previous
travellers, Ruwenzori might have remained longer unknown.
While we were advancing southward along the western flanks of
Mazamboni’s, and the Balegga Hills, during the month of May, 1889, the
great snowy range was frequently, almost daily, visible--not in its
entirety, but by fits and starts, a peak here, a mountain shoulder
there, with sometimes only a dim visage of the crowns, and at other
times the lower parts only in view. The snow gleamed white out of a dark
and cloudy frame, or the flanks, dark as night, loomed like
storm-clouds, boding rain and squalls. At rare periods the whole
appeared with a brilliant sharp-cut clearness that was very useful to us
to map our future route.
Yet all this time we scarcely understood its character, and not until we
had crossed the Semliki river, and had traversed a great portion of the
dense and tall woods, which thrive in the hothouse atmosphere of the
Semliki Valley, had we any intelligent comprehension of it.
The average European reader will perfectly understand the character of
the Semliki Valley and the flanking ranges, if I were to say that its
average breadth is about the distance from Dover to Calais, and that in
length it would cover the distance between Dover and Plymouth, or from
Dunkirk to St. Malo in France. For the English side we have the Balegga
hills and rolling plateau from 3,000 to 3,500 feet above the valley. On
the opposite side we have heights ranging from 3,000 to 15,500 feet
above it. Now, Ruwenzori occupies about ninety miles of the eastern line
of mountains, and projects like an enormous bastion of an unconquerable
fortress, commanding on the north-east the approaches by the Albert
Nyanza and Semliki Valley, and on its southern side the whole basin of
the Albert Edward Lake. To a passenger on board one of the Lake Albert
steamers proceeding south, this great bastion, on a clear day, would
seem to be a range running east and west; to a traveller from the south
it would appear as barring all passage north. To one looking at it from
the Balegga, or western plateau, it would appear as if the slowly rising
table-land of Unyoro was but the glacis of the mountain range. Its
western face appears to be so precipitous as to be unscaleable, and its
southern side to be a series of traverses and ridges descending one
below the other to the Albert Edward Lake. While its eastern face
presents a rugged and more broken aspect, lesser bastions project out of
the range, and is further defended by isolated outlying forts like
Gordon Bennett Mountain, 14,000 to 15,000 feet high, and the Mackinnon
Mountain of similar height. That would be a fair figurative description
of Ruwenzori.
The principal drainage of the snowy range is to the west, down into the
Semliki River, and south to the Albert Edward Lake. The Katonga flowing
into Lake Victoria, and the Kafur into the Victoria Nile, are both fed
from the eastern face of Ruwenzori. The Mississi River, emptying into
Lake Albert direct, rises from the northern extremity of the mountains.
During our journey southward, through the Semliki Valley and along the
shores of the Albert Edward, I counted sixty-two streams which descended
from Ruwenzori alone, the most important being the Rami, Rubutu,
Singiri, Ramilulu, Butahu, Rusirubi, Rwimi rivers, descending to the
Semliki River; and the Ruverahi, Nyamagasani, Unyamwambi, Rukoki, Nsongi
and Rusango rivers, pouring into the Albert Edward.
By boiling point the upper lake was ascertained to be at an altitude of
3,307 feet, and Lake Albert at 2,350 feet above the sea; thus making a
difference of level of 957 feet for about 150 miles of river. Therefore,
besides a strong current which we observed, and rapids, the Semliki
River must have a considerable number of great cataracts in its course
from lake to lake.
The Semliki Valley is noted for its hot-house character only for some
forty miles. That portion of it exposed to the sweep of the gales from
Lake Albert seems to have but a sour soil, for the yield of it is an
acrid grass, rejected by cattle, and thin forests of acacia; but between
this and the portion of exposed lake to the upper end is a soil so rich
and so productive that would rival the best soils in the world. The
natives have long ago discovered this fact, for they have gathered in
multitudes of small tribes to clear the thick forest and plant their
banana and plantain stalks. One can scarcely travel a mile in any
direction without coming across a luxuriant, heavy-fruited plantain
grove. In no part of Africa may be seen such abundance of food, not even
in Uganda. Ten such columns as I led might have revelled in abundance.
The plantain fruit, when mature, measured from twelve to eighteen inches
in length, and thick as the fore-arm of an ordinary man.
[Illustration: BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF RUWENZORI, LAKE ALBERT EDWARD AND LAKE
ALBERT.]
It occupied us sixteen days to traverse this rich forest region,
generally distinguished by the name of Awamba, after the tribe, and
during that time we had ten separate rainfalls, several of them lasting
over nine hours, while it thundered daily. Besides this, when we issued
out of the forest, and clung to the grassy foot of the range, at a few
hundred feet of altitude above it, we observed that, as far as we could
see, the forest extended unbroken, except by the numerous banana
plantations. There were many lateral depressions, marking the courses of
the streams, but few elevations of any importance, but over the whole
slowly sailed the snow-white mist in broad, irregular streams; these, in
a few moments, became joined into a universal mass, which to us, looking
down upon it, resembled an inverted sky. All this was very annoying to
us as curious sightseers, anxious to know the strange world we were in;
but it furnished suggestions as to the reason why this part was so
especially prolific, and why Ruwenzori was so coy. No winds could cool
this portion of the valley, or waft the vapours away and clear the
atmosphere from an entire corner of the compass, owing to the extent and
great height of Ruwenzori. The great mountain intercepted every breeze
from east round to south, and prevented the everlasting exhalations of
the valley from being blown in that direction, but, on their reaching
the intense cold above, distilled them, and rediffused them in copious
showers of rain. From north to west the northern range of mountains
obstructed the free passage of the winds, and assisted to maintain that
equable heat of the valley that was necessary for the fostering of that
marvellous vegetation. In every camp of this region the smoke hung over
us like a pall, smarting the eyes and half suffocating us. In such a
Nature’s conservatory as the Semliki Valley, buried under its own
perpetual warm exhalations, vegetation, as a matter of course, finding
every favourable element therein necessary for its growth and
nourishment, grows in riotous profusion. Where the humus is deep we find
a tall and stately forest, with an impervious underwood of young trees,
bound together and sometimes altogether hidden by countless climbing
vines and robust plants; where the humus is thinner, as near the foot of
the range, dense crops of cane-grass, from ten to fifteen feet in
height, flourish luxuriant and impenetrable. Every tree-stem has its
green robe of soft moss, dripping with dew, and each tree-fern or
horizontal branch has its orchids, or broad elephant-eared plant. Every
rock is clothed with lichens, and if but the slightest hollow is found
in it, there will be seen a multitude of tropic plants crowding every
inch. In short, everywhere, except upon the perpendicular face of a
late-moved boulder, vegetation thrives of every variety of greenness,
form, and character.
About a day before we finally issued out of the forest region we were
made still further aware what curious novelties in plants a natural
conservatory can produce. Between Mtarega and Ulegga we were astonished
at the huge girth of the wild banana plant, some of them being eighteen
inches in diameter two feet above the ground. The fronds were gathered
at the top of the stalk like an artificial bouquet, but presently spread
out, two feet wide and ten feet in length, forming graceful curves and a
most cooling shade, the leaves circling the flowers, which were like
great rosettes with drooping tassels. There seemed to be no limit to the
altitude at which these wild bananas grew, though we observed that their
number on the mountain slopes became more limited above 8,000 feet. The
tree-ferns, reaching as high as thirty feet from the ground, presented
themselves in a series of narrow groves along the moist hollows or near
banks of streamlets, while an untold variety of smaller ferns grew in
their neighbourhood, as though they were determined to prove their
relationship to the giants of the fern family. Then the calamus,
climbing from one tall tree to another with resolute grasp, next
attracted our attention. In the neighbourhood of such fern-groves the
trees were veritable giants, the orchids in their forks were most
numerous, and the elephant-eared lichen studded the horizontal branches,
while every tree was draped with soft green moss, beaded with dew, and
seemed sodden through excess of moisture.
Though the forest region ends as we enter Ulegga, the interval between
it and Mtsora is so devoted to cultivation by the natives that it is
only at the latter place that we become fully aware that we have entered
a new region. Looking towards the W.N.W. we see the commencement of a
brown grassy plain, the very duplicate of that extending round the
southern end of Lake Albert. In appearance it is as flat as though the
level bottom of a lake had just appeared in view and continues thus to
the Albert Edward Nyanza.
Between Mtsora and Muhamha we travelled along the edge of the low plain
or ancient bed of the northern portion of the Southern Nyanza, but soon
after leaving the last village we began to breast the mountains in order
to avoid the circuitous route along the plain round the promontory of
Sangwé-Mirembé.
As we journeyed towards the south-west over these hills we observed that
in the same manner as a change had come over the character of the
Semliki Valley the slopes of Ruwenzori had also undergone a similar
change. Instead of the thick forests which climbed up the lower slopes
and covered the ravines, and wild bananas and wonderful ferneries, and
general sappiness and luxuriance of the various species of vegetation,
pastoral grass waved on every slope and crest, while a healthful cool
breeze caused us to bless our fortune in having parted from the close,
heated and moist atmosphere of the Semliki.
But in two days’ march we observed that there was another change. We
were in a much drier climate, and the superficial aspect of the country
was much as might be expected from a comparatively rainless district--it
was that of a worn-out and scorched country. The grass was void of
succulency and nutriment. The slopes of the rounded hills presented
grooves of a brick-dust colour; here and there grew a stunted tree with
wrinkled and distorted branches and ugly olive-green leaves, too surely
denoting that the best of the soil had been scoured away or consumed by
annual conflagrations, that vegetable life was derived under precarious
circumstances despite the copious showers of the rainy season. As these
hills, which constitute the southern flank of Ruwenzori, present
themselves, the plains below, between their base and Lake Albert Edward,
share their meagre, famished, treeless, and uninteresting character.
Though the vegetation differs, the gum-trees, such as the acacia, the
rigid black euphorbia, the milk weed, are indications of a lean soil and
salt-effusing earth, and in reality such is the character of the bed of
the receded Nyanza.
In brief words, the north-west and west sides of Ruwenzori, blessed with
almost daily rains and with ever-fresh dews, enjoy perpetual spring and
are robed in eternal verdure; the south and south-west sides have their
well-defined seasons of rain and drought, and if seen during the dry
season, no greater contrast can be imagined than these opposing views of
nature’s youth and nature’s decay.
There are many doubtless, like myself, who, while gazing upon any
ancient work, be it an Egyptian Pyramid or Sphynx, be it an Athenian
Parthenon, Palmyrene sun temple, Persepolitan palace, or even an old
English castle, will readily confess to feeling a peculiar emotion at
the sight. The venerableness of it, which time only can give, its
associations with men long ago gathered to their fathers, the builders
and inhabiters now quite forgotten, appeal to a certain sympathy in the
living. For its history there is a vague yearning; its age awakens
something like exultation that we little mortals can build such
time-defying structures. But more powerful and higher is that emotion
which is roused at the sight of a hoary old mountain like this of
Ruwenzori, which we know to be countless thousands of years old. When we
think how long it required the melted snow to carve out these ravines,
hundreds of fathoms deep, through the rocky cone of the range, or the
ages required to spread out the débris from its sides and bosom to cover
the Semliki Valley and the Nyanza plains, we are struck dumb at the
immeasurableness of the interval between that age when Ruwenzori rose
aloft into being; and in reply to the still small voice which seems to
ask--“Where wast thou when the foundations of the earth were laid?
Declare if thou hast understanding,” we become possessed with a
wholesome awe, and can but feel a cheerful faith that it was good for us
to have seen it.
Another emotion is that inspired by the thought that in one of the
darkest corners of the earth, shrouded by perpetual mist, brooding under
the eternal storm-clouds, surrounded by darkness and mystery, there has
been hidden to this day a giant among mountains, the melting snow of
whose tops has been for some fifty centuries most vital to the peoples
of Egypt. Imagine to what a God the reverently-inclined primal nations
would have exalted this mountain, which from such a far-away region as
this contributed so copiously to their beneficent and sacred Nile. And
this thought of the beneficent Nile brings on another. In fancy we look
down along that crooked silver vein to where it disports and spreads out
to infuse new life to Egypt near the Pyramids, some 4000 miles away,
where we beheld populous swarms of men--Arabs, Copts, Fellahs, Negroes,
Turks, Greeks, Italians, Frenchmen, English, Germans, and
Americans--bustling, jostling, or lounging; and we feel a pardonable
pride in being able to inform them for the first time that much of the
sweet water they drink, and whose virtues they so often exalt, issues
from the deep and extensive snow-beds of Ruwenzori or Ruwenjura--“the
Cloud-King.”
[Illustration: VIEW OF RUWENZORI FROM BAKOKORO WESTERN CONES.]
Though from the nearest point to the central range we were distant
eight English miles in an air line, during the few brief clear views
obtained by us, especially that from Bakokoro, examination through a
good binocular informed us of the reason why so much snow was retained
on Ruwenzori. As will be seen from the various sketches of the profile,
the summit of the range is broken up into many sharp triangular casques
or narrow saddle-shaped ridges. Each casque, separately examined, seems
to be a miniature copy of the whole range, and dented by the elements,
time and weather, wind, rain, frost, and snow, and every side of
Ruwenzori appears to represent, though in an acuter degree, the
multitudinous irregularities of slopes and crests so characteristic of
its mighty neighbours which lie nearest to us, and are fully exposed to
the naked eye. Mostly all these triangular casque-like tops of the range
are so precipitous that, despite the everlasting snowfalls hardened by
the icy winds blowing over their exposed sides and summits, very little
snow is seen; but about 300 feet below, as may be estimated, ground more
adapted for the retention of the snow is found, which in some parts is
so extensive as to represent a vast field. Below this, however, another
deep precipice exposes its brown walls, and at the foot of it spreads
out another great field of snow joined here and there by sloping ground,
and this explains why the side of the range presented to view is not
uniformly covered with snow, and why the fields are broken up by the
brown patches. For quite 3,000 feet from the summit, as may be seen most
clearly from the view obtained from Karimi, there is illustrated a great
snowy continent enclosing numerous brown islands.
Naturally where the crests are so steep and naked, and where the walls
of the precipices are so lofty, the rough weather to which they are
exposed contributes to their dismantling and ruinous crumbling.
Fragments of rock and tons of rocky dust and particles tumble from above
on the compressed snow-bed below, which imperceptibly moves through the
influence of thawing and undermining of the bed by the trickling water,
downwards towards the valley a league below. As it descends the thaw
increases, and the movement of the snow-bed is more rapid, until,
arriving in the neighbourhood of tropic heat, or buried in a great cloud
of tepid vapour from the valley beneath, there is a sudden dissolution
of the snow, and the rocky fragments, débris and dust, borne by the
snow, are hurled downward, crashing through the ravines and over the
slopes, until they are arrested in the valley by some obstruction, and
form a bank near the debouchure of a ravine, or are scattered over many
an acre below the smooth slope of a hill.
Sometimes these ascending fields of snow, by the velocity of their
movements, grinding and dragging power, weight and compactness of their
bodies, cause extensive landslips, when tracts of wood and bush are
borne sheer down, with all the soil which nourished them, to the bed
rock, from which it will be evident that enormous masses of material,
consisting of boulders, rock fragments, pebbles, gravel, sand trees,
plants, and soil, are precipitated from the countless mountain slopes
and ravine sides into the valley of the Semliki.
In front of the Rami-lulu River from the mountain there has been at one
time some such disastrous pouring of the ruins of a mountain side, so
sudden that the river was blocked, the tract there covered about six
square miles. Since that time the Rami-lulu has ploughed down to the
former solid rock-bed, and now flows between two very steep banks 200
feet high, whence we can imagine the thickness of the débris.
Between Ugarama and Bukoko we discovered a very fertile tract close to
the base of the mountain slope, prodigiously prolific in its melons,
pumpkins, sugar-cane and millet; the subsoil is principally gravel and
sand mixed with a rich dark loam, but the immense number of large
boulders imbedded and half buried in the earth is a striking feature,
and point to glacial influence.
Between Bukoko and the mountains three miles away, and stretching along
their base southward for five or six miles, is another great tract
consisting of just such débris as the side of a mountain would naturally
consist in, but being principally of loose matter, it has assumed
through a long period of rainfalls a tolerably smooth gradated surface.
If we consider these circumstances as occurring periodically since the
upheaval of the great range, and that mighty subsidence which created
the wide and deep gulf now embraced by the Albert Edward Nyanza, the
Semliki Valley, and Lake Albert, we need not greatly wonder that
Ruwenzori now is but the skeleton of what it was originally: “Dust thou
art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Its head has been shorn of much
of its glory of amplitude; its shoulders have been worn and abraded,
through its side scores of streams have channeled deep, and the ribs of
it now stand, not bare and denuded, but marking indisputably what
wearing and battering it has experienced since it was born out of fire.
Slowly but surely the mountain is retiring to the place whence it came.
A few ages hence the Albert Edward Nyanza will be a great plain, and at
a later period Lake Albert will share the same fate. Geographers of that
far-off epoch will then rub their eyes should they chance to discover
the outlines of the two Nyanzas and intervening valley as they were
described in 1889.
[Illustration: RUWENZORI, FROM KARIMI.]
On most days, the early hours of morning ushered into view a long,
solemn, and stupendous mass, dark as night, the summits of which
appeared to approach very closely to the cloudless grey sky. But as
toward the east the fast-coming day changed the grey to gold, faint bars
of white clouds became visible above, and simultaneously along the base
of the range there rose stealthily a long line of fleecy mist. This was
presently drawn within gaping valleys and fissures in the slopes,
wherein it ascended with the upward draught in rolling masses along the
slants of their crooked windings, gathering consistency and density as
they ascended, yet changing their shapes every instant. Detached
portions floated to the right and left, to attract unto them the
straying and scattered mists issuing one by one from profound recesses
of the chasms. Then, united in a long swaying line, robing the legions
of hill shoulders, they issued into view from every flaw and gap in the
slope, and ranged in order, it appeared as though the intention was to
rally round the immense white range above. As the mist, now dense and
deep, began to feel the movement of the air in the higher altitude, its
motion became quicker, more sudden in assuming new forms, and out of the
upper ravines a host of restless, rolling white companies joined the
main line, the foremost surging boldly ahead and leading the way,
irresistibly, skyward.
By the time the sun is but a fourth of an hour above the eastern
horizon, and is beginning to expose the beauties that lie hid in
snow-beds upon high mountain-tops, and is playfully lavishing rainbow
colours around their borders and valances, lo! insensibly, as it were,
the mist, now formidably thick and broad, with bold and numerous
vanguards, has approached the snow, and rivals it in dazzling whiteness;
and presently, receiving full in its front the clear and strong
sunshine, excels it in glory of colour and gilding, and soon after rides
over the snow and the purple pinnacles of the range in splendid triumph.
But as minute after minute adds more mass to the mist, and the
fermenting Semliki Valley, with exhaustless power, pours forth army
after army, which hasten to join the upper ranks extended motionless
along the slopes and over every proud alpine crest, the mist loses its
beauty and splendour of colouring, and becomes like a leaden-coloured
fog, until finally, so great has been the accumulation, it becomes black
and terrible as a tempest cloud, and thus rests during the entire day,
and frequently until far into the night. Sometimes, however, a half-hour
or so before sunset, the cloud is blown away, and peak after peak, crest
after crest, snowy fields and mountain shoulders emerge in full glory
into light, and again we have a short but glorious view before night
falls and covers Ruwenzori with a still darker mantle.
These brief--too brief--views of the superb Rain-Creator or Cloud-King,
as the Wakonju fondly termed their mist-shrouded mountains, fill the
gazer with a feeling as though a glimpse of celestial splendour was
obtained. While it lasted, I have observed the rapt faces of whites and
blacks set fixed and uplifted in speechless wonder towards that upper
region of cold brightness and perfect peace, so high above mortal reach,
so holily tranquil and restful, of such immaculate and stainless purity,
that thought and desire of expression were altogether too deep for
utterance. What stranger contrast could there be than our own nether
world of torrid temperature, eternally green sappy plants, and
never-fading luxuriance and verdure, with its savagery and war-alarms,
and deep stains of blood-red sin, to that lofty mountain king, clad in
its pure white raiment of snow, surrounded by myriads of dark
mountains, low as bending worshippers before the throne of a monarch, on
whose cold white face were inscribed “Infinity and Everlasting!” These
moments of supreme feeling are memorable for the utter abstraction of
the mind from all that is sordid and ignoble, and its utter absorption
in the presence of unreachable loftiness, indescribable majesty, and
constraining it not only to reverentially admire, but to adore in
silence, the image of the Eternal. Never can a man be so fit for Heaven
as during such moments, for however scornful and insolent he may have
been at other times, he now has become as a little child, filled with
wonder and reverence before what he has conceived to be sublime and
Divine. We had been strangers for many months to the indulgence of any
thought of this character. Our senses, between the hours of sleeping and
waking, had been occupied by the imperious and imminent necessities of
each hour, which required unrelaxing vigilance and forethought. It is
true we had been touched with the view from the mount called Pisgah of
that universal extent of forest, spreading out on all sides but one, to
many hundreds of miles; we had been elated into hysteria when, after
five months’ immurement in the depths of forest wilds, we once again
trod upon green grass, and enjoyed open and unlimited views of our
surroundings--luxuriant vales, varying hill-forms on all sides, rolling
plains over which the long spring grass seemed to race and leap in
gladness before the cooling gale; we had admired the broad sweep and the
silvered face of Lake Albert, and enjoyed a period of intense rejoicing
when we knew we had reached, after infinite trials, the bourne and limit
of our journeyings; but the desire and involuntary act of worship were
never provoked, nor the emotions stirred so deeply, as when we suddenly
looked up and beheld the skyey crests and snowy breasts of Ruwenzori
uplifted into an inaccessible altitude, so like what our conceptions
might be of a celestial castle, with dominating battlement, and leagues
upon leagues of unscaleable walls.