I Am
Terrified Of Caves; It Sends A Creaming Down My Back To Think Of
Them.
We went across the river to see another cave entrance on the other
bank, where there is a narrow
Stretch of low rock-covered land at
the foot of the mountains, probably under water in the wet season.
The mouth of this other cave is low, between tumbled blocks of rock.
It looked so suspiciously like a short cut to the lower regions,
that I had less exploring enthusiasm about it than even about its
opposite neighbour; although they told me no man had gone down "them
thing." Probably that much-to-be-honoured Frenchman who explored
the other cave, allowed like myself, that if one did want to go from
the Equator to Hades, there were pleasanter ways to go than this.
My Kembe Island man said that just hereabouts were five cave
openings, the two that we had seen and another one we had not, on
land, and two under the water, one of the sub-fluvial ones being
responsible for the whirlpool we met outside the gateway of Boko
Boko.
The scenery above Boko Boko was exceedingly lovely, the river shut
in between its rim of mountains. As you pass up it opens out in
front of you and closes in behind, the closely-set confused mass of
mountains altering in form as you view them from different angles,
save one, Kangwe - a blunt cone, evidently the record of some great
volcanic outburst; and the sandbanks show again wherever the current
deflects and leaves slack water, their bright glistening colour
giving a relief to the scene.
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