Three-and-a-half hours' march from the Ituri, we issued out of the forest, and again the change from perpetual twilight to brilliant sunlight, and a blue sky was astonishing, and we all smiled to witness its effects on the nerves of our gentle friend and companion, the first son of Erin who had ever viewed the grass lands of these regions. This was the 289th day of Dr. Parke's forest life, and the effect of this sudden emergence out of the doleful shades in view of this enlarged view from the green earth to the shining and glowing concave of Heaven caused him to quiver with delight. Deep draughts of champagne could not have painted his cheeks with a deeper hue than did this exhilarating prospect which now met him. On the road just before leaving the bush we passed a place where an elephant spear had fallen to the ground, and buried itself so deep that three men were unable to heave it up. Such a force, we argued, would have slain an elephant on the instant. While sketching Pisgah Mountain in the afternoon from our first camp in the pasture land, I observed a cloud approaching it from the N.W., and all the forest beyond was shaded by its deep shadows, while the rolling plains still basked in hot sunshine. Presently another cloud from the S.E. appeared round the southern extremity of Mazamboni's range, and as it advanced, spread over the blue sky, and became merged with the cloud over the forest, and then rain fell. At an altitude of 3,200 feet above the sea the village of Bessé is situated, seven hours' march from the Ituri. Though it was yet early forenoon we camped, the abundance of good ripe bananas, corn, fowls, sugar-cane, and banana wine being very tempting, and the distance to other villages east being unknown. Quite an active skirmish soon occurred while we were engaged making ready our quarters. Fetteh, the sole interpreter to the tribes of the plains, was grievously wounded over the stomach. The Babessé attempted various means to molest us as the long grass favoured them, but by posting sharpshooters in the native lookouts in the trees the knowledge that their tactics were supervised soon demoralised them. We had some speech by means of a native of Uganda with one of these natives, who among his remarks said, "We are quite assured that you black men are creatures like ourselves, but what of those white chiefs of yours? Whence do they come?" "Oh," our man replied, with wonderful facility for fraudful speech, "their faces change with the birth of each moon, when the moon is getting full their colour is dark like our own. They are different from us, as they came from above originally." "Ah, true, it must be so," responded the astonished native, as he brought his hand up to his mouth from politeness, to cover the mouth that expanded with surprise.