Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1890 — A WONDERFUL FOREST. [ARTICLE]

A WONDERFUL FOREST.

The Black Forest of Africa Described by Stanley, Christian Union, New York. The latest issues of Harper’s Weekly quotes from one of Stanley’s letters a description of one of the natural—and one is tempted to say unnatural—features of a dense, before unpenetrated African forest, that makes the reader look with eager interest for the account of the great explorer’s recent expedition which is soon to be published with his authority in this country by the Scribners: “We were then introduced into the difficulties which more or less would, impede our movements and arrest rapid progress. These consisted of creepers, varying from one-eighth of an inch to fifteen inches in diameter, swinging across the path in bow-line 9 or loops, sometimes massed and twisted together, also of a low, dense bush, occupying the site of old clearings, which had to be carved through before a passage was possible. Where years had elapsed since the clearings had beeu abandoned, we found a young forest, and the spaces between the trees choked with climbing plants, vegetable creepers, and tall plants. This kind had to be tunneled through before an inch of progress could be made. The primeval forest offered least obstruction, but the atmosphere was close, stagnant, impure, and an eternal gloom reigned there, intensified every: other day by the thick, black clouds charged with rain, so characteristic of this forest region. * * * The mornings were generally stern and sombre, the sky covered with lowering and heavy clouds; at other times thick mists buried everything, clearing off about nine a. m,, sometimes not until eleven a. m. Nothing stirs then; insect life is asleep, and the forest is as still as death; the dark? river, darkened by the lofty walls of thick forest and vegetation, is silent as a grave. Our heart-throbs seem almost clamorous, and our inmost thoughts loud. If no rain follows this darkness, the sun appears from behind the cloudy, masses, the mist disappears and life wakens up before its brilliancy. Butter flies scurry through the air, a solitary ibis croaks ah alarm, a diver flies across the stream, the forest is full of strange murmur, and somewhere up river booms an alarm drum. * * * I could write a book almost on the various species of bees found in tbia forest region, and several books might be written about the multitude of curious insects we have seen. Wkat with the bees of all kinds, the various kinds of ticks, gnats, etc., our lives have been made just as miserable as they could be. We were prepared to encounter the most ferocious cannibals, but the Central African forest, now open for the first time, contains some horrors within its gloomy bosom that we were not prepared for.