The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-03-15

these glariers, noticeable to a less ex- tent in the Sikklm Himalaya, is that they discharge no meltings, but waste away under atmospheric influences. A tiny clear rivulet the issue probably of some fountain beneath the ice, Is all that represents the source of the high est tributary of the Nile
 Trees grow up to 15,000 feet, and the snow line, in any sense in which the term is used by orographers is not therefore at 13,000 feet, though I did make snowball at that level. Through the very heart of the chain there Is 8 native pass which must be oyer 14000 feet and which does not touch snow 1 The Saddle Peak" indicated in some maps several miles to the north of the central group, is an innovation, or rath- CT duplication of the highest peak, which has two tops.
 We found the mountain tribe-the Bakon5o, who served us as porters- very pleasant people. They carried heavy burdens up the worst paths with amazing skill and alacrity; on the march they were willing, helpful and intelligent. Fortified by the blankets and food we supplied, provisionment gave us no trouble; they endured the weather without grumble. On rocks they can climb; snow and ice, of course, are beyond them. The slopes around their villages are industriously cultivated and we saw many plots be- being cleared for maize fields on the forest outskirts,
 With the frosty splendors of the Caucasus or Himalaya, the solitary Af- rican mountain cannot, as I have said, pretend to vie. But the scenery of Ruwenzori has an extraordinary char acter of it's own. It must impress even those (apd perhaps most those) who are familiar with many of the great ranges of Europe and Asia. The landscapes of the foothills, enlivened by banana groves and beehive huts, by clusters of palms and red blossomed trees; tle deep bays at the base of the central range, clothed in belt of tropical for est, over which frowns the serrated crest of the Portal Peaks-scenery of this kind may be seen elsewhere. |
 | But the strange and fantastic aspect
 of the inner glens, with their dark,
 smooth gleaming walls and broken bat dement's and their almost incredibly | grotesque vegetation, is, so far as
 know, unique. The traveller is tempt
 ed to fancy himself wandering among
 tine relics of an earlier world or under
 the influence of a Doresque nightmare.
 The prevailing impression, iQ our case,
 at least, was one of gloom. Yet when
 a passing ray of sunshine slanted across
 the black and gold cliffs and lit up the
 lichens on the gigantic heaths the ef- fects of color were superb.
 1 Beautifub also was the pail upon the
 mountain lifted sufficiently to reveal
 beneath it the sunshine of the lower
 world, were the views out over the
 broad valley to the east and across the
 shining levels of Lake Ruisamba to the
 hills of Ankole, greener Apennines,
 glowing through the morning hours in
 aerial colors, more brilliant and trans-
 lucent even than those of Italy. Lake
 Ruisamba is often represented on maps
 as 8 back water of Lake Albert Ed
 ward In reality it is connected with it l by a swift, smooth-Aowing stream sew eral miles nlength and second only in volume to the Victoria Nile.