Leaving Fort Gerry and all its hospitalities on August 28th, I skirted along the northern spur of Ruwenzori, passing between the little volcanic lakes Vijongo, and after three hours’ walking, arrived at the edge of the first escarpment. Here there is a sheer drop of 1,500 ft. from the undulating table-land of Toro proper to the scrub-clad terrace about eight miles wide, which in its turn overlooks the Semliki valley, a further drop of 500 ft. From the edge of the first escarpment the view is truly magnificent; to the south looms the mighty bulk of Ruwenzori, a purple mass, peak piled upon peak, black-streaked with forest, scored with ravine, and ever mounting till her castellated crags shoot their gleaming tips far into the violet heavens. But it is only for a brief hour at sunset or sunrise: then again the mists swirl up her thousand gorges, again the storm-cloud lowers and broods grumbling round her virgin snows as though jealous of the future--a future of Cook’s tours, funicular railways, personally-conducted ascents (with a sermon and ginger-beer thrown in). Well! thank God I have seen her first--seen her as she has stood for countless ages, wrapped in impenetrable mystery, undesecrated by human tread since the awful travail that gave her birth. "The Mountains of the Moon"--the very name breathes mystery and romance, and fitly have romance and the myths of the ancients played round her crest, for is she not part mother of the Nile? Alas! even as we gaze she fades away, a murky glow lights up the evening sky, again she starts into bold relief, ’tis her last farewell! The mists eddy round those frowning crags, creeping here, drifting there, and the curtain drops, hiding all but the great black base. Such is Ruwenzori, when she deigns to show herself; and only when there is rain in the air is she thus condescending.