This Road Is Quite The Most
Magnificent Of Roads, As Regards Breadth And General Intention, That
I Have Seen Anywhere In West Africa, And It Runs Through A Superbly
Beautiful Country.
It is, I should say, as broad as Oxford Street;
on either side of it are deep drains to
Carry off the surface
waters, with banks of varied beautiful tropical shrubs and ferns,
behind which rise, 100 to 200 feet high, walls of grand forest, the
column-like tree-stems either hung with flowering, climbing plants
and ferns, or showing soft red and soft grey shafts sixty to seventy
feet high without an interrupting branch. Behind this again rise
the lovely foot hills of Mungo, high up against the sky, coloured
the most perfect soft dark blue.
The whole scheme of colour is indescribably rich and full in tone.
The very earth is a velvety red brown, and the butterflies - which
abound - show themselves off in the sunlight, in their canary-
coloured, crimson, and peacock-blue liveries, to perfection. After
five minutes' experience of the road I envy those butterflies. I do
not believe there is a more lovely road in this world, and besides,
it's a noble and enterprising thing of a Government to go and make
it, considering the climate and the country; but to get any genuine
pleasure out of it, it is requisite to hover in a bird- or
butterfly-like way, for of all the truly awful things to walk on,
that road, when I was on it, was the worst.
Of course this arose from its not being finished, not having its top
on in fact: the bit that was finished, and had got its top on, for
half a mile beyond the bridge, you could go over in a Bath chair.
The rest of it made you fit for one for the rest of your natural
life, for it was one mass of broken lava rock, and here and there
leviathan tree-stumps that had been partially blown up with
gunpowder.
When we near the forest end of the road, it comes on to rain
heavily, and I see a little house on the left-hand side, and a
European engineer superintending a group of very cheerful natives
felling timber. He most kindly invites me to take shelter, saying
it cannot rain as heavily as this for long. My men also announce a
desire for water, and so I sit down and chat with the engineer under
the shelter of his verandah, while the men go to the water-hole,
some twenty minutes off.
After learning much about the Congo Free State and other matters, I
presently see one of my men sitting right in the middle of the road
on a rock, totally unsheltered, and a feeling of shame comes over me
in the face of this black man's aquatic courage. Into the rain I
go, and off we start. I conscientiously attempt to keep dry, by
holding up an umbrella, knowing that though hopeless it is the
proper thing to do.
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