beyond Njole, a closely set series of
mits beautifully purple-blue, running away jndefim f c t p l g e
N.N.W. and S .E .; and when the day was^cle , _
the mountains of Achangoland away o e . f0n0Wing the
shape evidently the same formation, u n j h e
same direction as the range of the Sierra del CnstaL g |
hills I had personally to deal with were western l f e d « ^
of the Sierra— all masses of hard black ro
blocks of crystalline quartz. Between the of
rocks, was the rich vegetable mould mad y
thousands g
to affect this shmb^J^ |W - y ^ scent, and the grimaces
and^spitting g^ggplMBBP
Teohante as I will someday describe. The high trees were of
elephants, as iw red_wood> African Qak, a little ebony,
Vad10oUdSeaka and many’other kinds I know n and o^ a k a ,an d m y ^ g g j l i know ^ot ebveyn S tlhghet native
T e S 1 a v t id ly yellow wood of great beauty. Nowand
when cut, Y Y ^ hillside, one comes across great
again on exp P thrown down by tornadoes
falls ° f * y ber „ ^ f cr^ Vnd - in which ease under and among
and getting over them is
them are snakes ^ n sfdeways and hanging against their
slippery work , Us drapery of climbing, flower-
Pres®n ° - i n
a wall made up of strong tendrils and climbing grasses,
through which the said atom has to cut its way with a
matchette and push into the crack so made, getting, the while
covered with red driver-ants, and such like, and having sensational
meetings with blue-green snakes, dirty green snakes with
triangular horned heads, black cobras,' and boa constrictors. I
I never came back to the station without having been frightened
I half out of my wits, and with one or two of my smaller terrifiers
I in cleft sticks to bottle. When you get into the way, catching a
I snake in a cleft stick is perfectly simple. Only mind you
I have the proper kind of stick, split far enough up, and keep
I■ your attention on the snake’s head, that’s his business, end,
■ and the tail which is whisking and winding round your wrist I does not matter: there was one snake, by the way, of which it
■ was impossible to tell, in the forest, which was his head.
■ The natives swear he has one at each end ; so you had better
I Lef em, even though you know the British Museum would
■love to have him, for he is very venomous, and one of the
■few cases of death from snake-bite I have seen, was from this
■species, «a
I Several times, when further in the forest, I came across
la trail of flattened undergrowth, for fifty' or sixty yards, with
la horrid musky smell that demonstrated it had been the path
jpf a boa constrictor, and nothing more.
I It gave me more trouble and terror to get to the top of
^Jjthose Talagouga hillsides than it gave me to go twenty miles
Bin the forests of Old Calabar, and that is saying a good deal,
■ p t when you got to the summit there was the glorious view
■pf the rest of the mountains, stretching away, interrupted only
1 by Mount Talagouga to the S.E. by E. and the great, grim,
■ a rk forest, under the lowering gray sky common during the
■ p season on the Equator. No glimpse or hint did one have
tke up here, so deep down in its ravine does it flow,
» p e r s o n c om in g to the hill tops close to Talagouga from the
N.N.W. and turning back in his track from here might be
H e J unconscious that one of the great rivers of the world
B flowing, fun and strong, within some 800 feet of him.
■pere is a strange sense of secretiveness about all these West