From S.E. to S. extended a range of mountains between 6,000 and 7,000 feet above the sea. One woman captive indicated S.E. as our future direction to the great water that "rolled incessantly on the shore with a booming noise, lifting and driving the sand before it," but as we were in S. Lat. 1°. 22', on the same parallel as Kavalli, our objective point, I preferred aiming east, straight towards it.
Old Boryo, chief of Ibwiri, had drawn with his hand a semicircle from S.E. to N.W. as the course of the Ituri River, and said that the river rose from a plain at the foot of a great hill, or a range of hills. To the S.E. of Pisgah we could see no plain, but a deep wooded valley, and unless our eyes deceived us, the forest seemed to ascend up the slopes of the range as far as its summits. Five months of travel in one continuous forest was surely experience enough; a change would therefore be agreeable, even if we varied but our hardships. This was another reason why I proposed to decline all advice upon the proper path leading to the "great water."
In the village of the Bakwuru, in which we now prepared to encamp, we found sleeveless vests of thick buffalo hide, which our men secured, as fitting armour against the arrows of the tribes of the grass land.
[Illustration: VILLAGES OF THE BAKWURU ON A SPUR OF PISGAH.]
On the 1st of December we retraced our steps down the spur, and then struck along a track running easterly. In a short time we ascended another spur leading up to a terrace below Pisgah peak, where we obtained the highest reading of the aneroid that we had yet reached. We then followed a path leading from the terrace down another spur to the average level. A number of well-defined and trodden roads were crossed, but our path seemed to increase in importance until, at 11.15 A.M., we entered the large village of Iyugu, which, of course, was quite deserted, so quickly do the natives of the forest seem to be apprised of new arrivals. The street of this village was forty feet wide.
We observed a considerable dryness in the woods between Pisgah base and Iyugu, which was a great change from that excessive humidity felt and seen between Indenduru and Ibwiri. The fallen forest leaves had a slightly crispy look about them and crackled under our feet, and the track, though still in primeval shade, had somewhat of the dusty appearance of a village street.