, 1890-08-09
Darkest Africa
From NGture.)

The great forest in which so much Of The
time Of the Expedition was spent and which
entailed upon it SO much suffering and so
many losses, pervades the whole work; ana
one might even trace its depressing influence
esupOn Mr.. Stanley's styIein the carrier chap
ters of the book. There are several points
of great scientific interest connected with
the forest. Mr.. Stanley refers to Prof.
DrummOnd i'll terms unnecessarily severe,
because in his book on Tropical Africa
he describes the type of African forest as
quite different from that Of Brazil. But
Prot. DrummOnd can only by taken as re-
ferring to that part of Africa with which he
.islperfectly familiar, the LakeNyassa region,
whereas in East Africa, generally the
'~forest" is of the open park-like character,
with dense patches here and there. But
the fact is, we are apt to forget that Africa
is a great continent covering some II mil.
lion square miles, and that it's surface pre-
sents a great variety of features. Here Is
how Mr.. Stanley puts 1t =
"Nyassa land is not Africa, but itself.
Neither can We call the wildncss of Nasal
Land or the scrub. covered desert of Kala-
haIi, or the rolling grass land of Usukuma,
or the thin forests Of UnyamweZi, or the
OchreOus acacia, covered area of UgOgO, any
. thing but sections of a continent tina: boasts
many zones. Africa is about three times
greater than Europe in its extent and it is
infinitely more varied. You have the
desert of deserts in the Sahara, you have
the stcppes of Eastern Russia in Masia
and and parts of South Africa, you have
the CastilIan uplandS in Unyamwezi, you
have the best parts of France represented
by Egypt, you have Switzerland III UkOniu
and TorO, the Alps in Ruwen2ori-yOu have
Brazil i'll the Congo basin, tine Amazon III
the Congo river, and its immense forests
rivalled by the Central African forest
which | am about to describe.
The greatest length ofthis forest, that is
from near KabambarT6 i'll South Manyue.
ma to BagbOmo on the Welle-Makua III
West Miamniam, is 62l miles its average
breadth is GIT miles, which makes a com
pact square area of 1921 ,O57 square miles.
This is exclusive OF the forest areas sepa-
rated or penetrated into by campOlike
reaches of grass land, or of the broad belts
of timber which fill the lower levels of
eaci- great river basin like the Lumani,
Lulungu, WelIe- Nubangi, and the parent
river from BolobO to the Loika River.
''The Congo and the Aruwini Rivers en-
abled us to penetrate this vast area of pri-
meval God q considerable length. |
only mean TO treat therefore, of that portion
which extends from Yambuya in $50 81
Ell. to Indesura, 900 59'=3265 English
miles in a straight line"
Mr.. Stanley's description Of an African
tropical forest is also worth quoting
"Tmagine the whole of France and the
Iberian peninsula closely packed withltrees
varying from 90 to $50 feet high, whose
crowns Of foliage interlace aud prevent
any view of the sky and sun, and each tree
from a few inches to four feet in diameter.
Then from tree to tree run cables from two
inches to fifteen inches in diameter, up and
down in loops and festoons and WIS and
badly formed MS; fold them round the
trees in great tight coils until they have
run mp the entire height, like endless ana
condas; let them flower aud leaf luxnri-
Q antly, and mix up above with the foIi-
age of the trees to hide the sun, then from
the highest branches let fall the ends
of the cables reaching near to the ground
by hundreds with frayed extremities, for
these represent the air roots of the Epi-
phytes; let slender cords hang down also
in; tassels with open thread-work at the
ends. Work others through and through
these as contusedly as possible, and PEN
dent from branch TO branch-with absolute
disregard OF material, and at every fork anil
on every horizont Il branch plant cabbage.
Nko lichena of the largest kind; aud broad