of white servants. We came in time to regard these pigmies as indispensable, and some of them would certainly have been taken with us back to Europe, but after they got out of the forest the changed conditions and the difference in climate proved too much for them. Their little legs could not stand the long marches, and one after another they collapsed.

The next most interesting discovery we made was that of the long-lost Mountains of the Moon. In my book, "Darkest Africa," I have illustrated with small maps our knowledge of Africa derived from the ancients. In these it is clearly shown that ivory-hunters and slave-traders had reached that region in times past. Information as to it varied. The last traveler there, as now, was regarded as the best informed. This is why the great lakes of the interior and the Mountains of the Moon shifted every hundred years or so ten degrees north or south of the Equator. It was in December, 1887, that we got a glimpse of the twin cones of Ruwenzori. There are many, doubtless, like myself, who, while gazing upon any ancient work, be it an Egyptian Pyramid, or Sphinx, 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 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 we consider 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 immeasurable

ness of the interval between that age when Ruwenzori rose aloft into being and now; 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 behold populous swarms of men-Arabs, Copts, Fellahs, Negroes, Turks, Greeks, Italians, Frenchmen, English, Germans, and Americansbustling, 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 snowbeds of Ruwenzori or Ruwenjura-"the Cloud-King.

These brief-too brief-views of the superb Rain-Creator or Cloud-King, as the Wakonju fondly termed their mistshrouded mountains, fill the gazer with a feeling as of a glimpse of celestial splendor. While it lasted, I observed the rapt faces of whites and blacks set fixed and uplifted in speechless wonder toward that upper region of cold brightness and perfect peace, so high above mortal reach, so 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 worshipers before the throne of a monarch, on whose cold, white face was 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, constraining it not only reverentially to 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 unscalable walls.

Revisiting the Lake Albert region at later periods we found that the snow-capped peaks had an exasperating habit of disappearing from view, and it was only in May of 1889 that I finally solved the mystery. Rolling clouds and vapors sometimes blot them out. This is why the natives call them "Ruwenzori," which means "the Cloud-King."

The discovery of the Snow Mountains led to two more discoveries-that of the Albert Edward Nyanza, and the head-waters of the Albertine Nile; and the confused information given by the priests of Isis in olden times to Egyptian and Greek geographers, furnished by the ivory traders and slave-raiders of old, has now been made perfectly clear in all its important details.

Day after day we marched, marking the features of this splendid primeval world, revealed for the first time. Now and then we caught glimpses of a multitude of precipitous cliffs which towered some 15,000 feet above. As we approached Albert Edward, we emerged from the forest, and a vast plain stretched before us, covered by immense fields of corn and sugar-cane. The natives, black but amiable, collected about us, and sought our protection from incursive tribes. They volunteered to be our guides, and led us up a vast grassy promontory, where for a day we reveled in pure, cold air, and the next day they took us down to the lake where we tasted the tropics once more.

From the eastern shores of Lake Albert two days climbing brought us to a beautiful region. The people here were divided into two tribes, but they were derived, apparently, from a common origin. They were a fine-featured race, and the men grew very tall. They lived mainly upon milk and sugar-cane, and, unfortunately for their future civilization, they are massed into nations that are ruled by despotic kings. From this country we struck the eastern end of Victoria Nyanza, and by traveling along the shore we discovered a new addition to this lake of 26,900 square miles. We struck the region during its dry season. The grass was sere; chilly winds blew over the uplands; a cold mist frequently obscured the face of the country, and a heavy,

leaden sky seemed to bear down upon us in a searching cold. Our half-naked people shivered, and one day five fell dead in their tracks as though they were shot. They would all have perished had not the officer commanding the rear guard bolted, and made great bonfires.

During our march to the sea, it had gradually dawned upon us that there was intense political rivalry between England and Germany in Africa. But as our expedition had been solely to relieve Emin, we flattered ourselves that we had nothing to do with these dissensions.

Emin was a German, and we accepted German hospitality as a proof of their good-will. We knew Emin was pliable and yielding. We supposed his gratitude was not very deep. But we thought that nothing could rupture the good feeling that had hitherto existed between us. But the accident at Bagamoya, the first evening after reaching the sea, and being embraced by his countrymen, was wholly unexpected, and it gave the Germans on the East Coast a fair opportunity. We had abundant proof afterward how beautifully the Germans understood Emin's character. Frenchmen and Italians, perhaps, would have performed their parts far more efficiently without advertising the means employed.

Emin at the banquet in our honor was joyously grateful to each member of our expedition. He embraced Stairs and Nelson and Jephson, and flung himself on the neck of Parke; stood between Wissman and myself uttering gayly his happy feelings, and then went away and fell over the balcony to the dismay of the company. He was taken to the hospital in an unconscious state. On his recovering consciousness we had a kindly parting, and then the operations of his countrymen began. First, Dr. Parke, who had volunteered to attend the sufferer, was made to feel that his presence was irksome. Servants became careless; the food was stinted. If he went to the officers' mess-table, the German officers continued to show their strong disapproval of his presence. Then Dr. Parke fell ill of a fever and was conveyed to Zanzibar almost dying. Our letters to Emin were