As the cooking proceeded, frowning
brows relaxed, and huge fires put to flight ill temper and the
sandfly. I had proposed lashing my hammock to one of the tree-
stumps, which are here some ten feet tall, the people, who swing
themselves for the purpose of felling, declare the upper wood to
be softer than below. "Public opinion," however, overruled me,
and made it fast to two old trunks. The night was a succession of
violent tornadoes, and during one of the most outrageous the
upper half of a "triste lignum," falling alongside of and grazing
my hammock, awoke me with its crash.
Next morning, when the rain had somewhat abated, I set out, by a
path whose makers were probably the ape and the squirrel-hunter,
in the direction of a rise, which the people called Mbika --The
hill. After a total of some two miles and a half, we found a
clearing upon the summit, but, although I climbed up a tree, the
bush was dense enough to conceal most of the surroundings.
According to the Fan, the Nkomo rises on the seaward or western
face of this Mbika, whilst the Mbokwe, springing from its eastern
counterslope, runs south-west of the Massif and joins the former.
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