The greatest length of this forest, that is from near Kabambarré in South Manyuema to Bagbomo on the Welle-Makua in West Niam-niam, is 621 miles; its average breadth is 517 miles, which makes a compact square area of 321,057 square miles. This is exclusive of the forest areas separated or penetrated into by campo-like reaches of grass land, or of the broad belts of timber which fill the lower levels of each great river basin like the Lumani, Lulungu, Welle-Mubangi, and the parent river from Bolobo to the Loika River. The Congo and the Aruwimi rivers enabled us to penetrate this vast area of primeval woods a considerable length. I only mean to treat, therefore, of that portion which extends from Yambuya in 25° 3½′ E. L. to Indesura, 29° 59′ = 326½ English miles in a straight line. Now let us look at this great forest, not for a scientific analysis of its woods and productions, but to get a real idea of what it is like. It covers such a vast area, it is so varied and yet so uniform in its features, that it would require many books to treat of it properly. Nay, if we regard it too closely, a legion of specialists would be needed. We have no time to examine the buds and the flowers or the fruit, and the many marvels of vegetation, or to regard the fine differences between bark and leaf in the various towering trees around us, or to compare the different exudations in the viscous or vitrified gums, or which drip in milky tears or amber globules, or opaline pastils, or to observe the industrious ants which ascend and descend up and down the tree shafts, whose deep wrinkles of bark are as valleys and ridges to the insect armies, or to wait for the furious struggle which will surely ensue between them and yonder army of red ants. Nor at this time do we care to probe into that mighty mass of dead tree, brown and porous as a sponge, for already it is a mere semblance of a prostrate log. Within it is alive with minute tribes. It would charm an entomologist. Put your ear to it, and you hear a distinct murmurous hum. It is the stir and movement of insect life in many forms, matchless in size, glorious in colour, radiant in livery, rejoicing in their occupations, exultant in their fierce but brief life, most insatiate of their kind, ravaging, foraging, fighting, destroying, building, and swarming everywhere and exploring everything. Lean but your hand on a tree, measure but your length on the ground, seat yourself on a fallen branch, and you will then understand what venom, fury, voracity, and activity breathes around you. Open your notebook, the page attracts a dozen butterflies, a honey-bee hovers over your hand; other forms of bees dash for your eyes; a wasp buzzes in your ear, a huge hornet menaces your face, an army of pismires come marching to your feet. Some are already crawling up, and will presently be digging their scissor-like mandibles in your neck. Woe! woe!