We separated at 10 A.M., and in a short time I had my first experience among the loftier hills of the Aruwimi valley. I led the caravan northward through the trackless forest, sheering a little to the north east to gain a spur, and using animal tracks when they served us. Progress was very slow, the undergrowth was dense; berries of the phrynium and fruit of the Amomum _fenessi_ and nux vomica, besides the large wood beans and fungi of all sorts, were numerous, and each man gathered a plentiful harvest. Unaccustomed to hills for years, our hearts palpitated violently as we breasted the steep-wooded slopes, and cut arid slashed at the obstructing creepers, bush and plants.
Ah, it was a sad night, unutterably sad, to see so many men struggling on blindly through that endless forest, following one white man who was bound whither none knew, whom most believed did not know himself. They were in a veritable hell of hunger already! What nameless horrors awaited them further on none could conjecture? But what matter, death comes to every man soon or late! Therefore we pushed on and on, broke through the bush, trampled down the plants, wound along the crest of spurs zigzagging from north-east to north-west, and descending to a bowl-like valley by a clear stream, lunched on our corn and berries.
During our mid-day halt, one Umari having seen some magnificent and ripe _fenessi_ at the top of a tree thirty feet high, essayed to climb it, but on gaining that height, a branch or his strength yielded and he tumbled headlong upon the heads of two other men who were waiting to seize the fruit. Strange to say, none of them were very seriously injured. Umari was a little lame in the hip and one of those upon whom he fell complained of a pain in the chest.
At 3.30 after a terrible struggle through a suffocating wilderness of arums, amoma, and bush, we came to a dark amphitheatral glen and at the bottom found a camp just deserted by the natives, and in such hot haste that they had thought it best not to burden themselves with their treasures. Surely some divinity provided for us always in the most stressful hours. Two bushels of Indian corn, and a bushel of beans awaited us in this camp.