Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1908-08-18
Mistellaueuus Reading.
AFRICAN FOREST NOT so BAD.
Frenchman Modifies the Gloomy Piet-
ures of Earlier Travellers.

7 FFenCnIrdn mOOlIlSS IHS SiSS'J ~
ures Of Earlier Travellers.
The travellers who first penetrated
the vast equatorial forests of Africa
fixed the worlds attention with word
pictures that are now believed TO be
partly fantastic. Some of them told
how they wandered months without
seeing the sun.
They lived at monday in semi
darkness. The underground almost
prevented progress, no fresh breezes
could penetrate the area of gloom
and even the animals were silent, like
every other phase of nature existing
there.
The writer's of today are taking
different view of this tropical forest.
The latest of them is Maurice Della
fosse, one of the leading colonial ofn-
cials of France, who in a book just
written contradicts many statements
Of earlier travellers.
He says that nowhere has he found
the African forest darker than any
other woodland. The vegetation In II
is certainly more luxuriant and more
crowded together than in a European
forest, but it is an exaggeration TO
say they are covered with impenetra-
BILE vegetation.
Wherever the natives live, we'll
worn footpaths lead in all directions.
Travelling is hard on some of them
but many of the paths are very use
full highways.
Delafosse had none of the expert
ence of travellers who assert that
their garments have practically been
stripped off them by the dense and
thorny underground. He lived Tor
months in forests without greater
damage to his clothing than in any
other parts of Africa, except that
when travelling rapidly on a hunting
path his sleeves have become unduly
worn at the elbows.
AS for darkness in the forests, he
often took his compass bearings With
out artificial light when pitching camp
at nightfall. The forest traveller has
this advantage, that he is always in
shadow, and on the hottest days he
can pursue his journey the whole af-
ternoon. which would be impossible in
the open country.
AS for the reputed feeling of dis
comfort and oppression in the depths
of the forest, this is partly true. When
there is no stir in the atmosphere 1t is
more difficult to breathe in the forest
than in the open, and as there is less
chance for evaporation the discom-
fort of excessive perspiration is man.
ifest
1t must be remembered, however,
that if under such atmospheric condi-
tions a man breathes more easily In
the open land he is at the same time
much hotter and so far more uncom-
Portable. When a breeze stirs any
where it penetrates the woods also
with refreshing effect.
Delafosse records that he has had
few such delightful experiences in Af-
rica as on his morning walks in the
depths of the forest. He has never
found forest travel as uncomfortable
as marching over the savannahsl
where the high grass is above his
head. It is then that a man without
air, horizon or shade feels as though
he would melt.
There are plenty of sounds in the
forest to attract attention also, and
they help to keep ennui at distance.
Something is going on all the time.
In addition to the ceaseless mur-
mur of the streams there are the
humming of insects, the song of birds,
the chatter of the monkeys, their
gymnastic feats from branch toI
branch, the occasional falling of dead
branches and tree trunks, and at
night time the wonderful harmonies
and discords of animate and 1nam-
mate life that awaken when darkness
comes and sleep again at sunrise.