We loaded our tin canisters, clothing bags, guns and cameras on a cart which was waiting and set out along the bush trail, three and a half miles to the gold mine. The trail led through a great swampy forest with a clear brook occasionally crossing it, and for the sake of the wagon which had to transport all supplies, it was corduroyed in the worst places with small saplings or quartered trunks. We had all donned cheap tennis shoes which proved on this and all later occasions to be perfect footwear for the tropics. The rubber soles allow one to obtain sure footing in slippery places and a wetting matters nothing. If one walks far enough the shoes dry on one’s feet, or at camp a new pair may be slipped on in a moment and next day the old ones are none the worse for the soaking. Here snake-proof and water-proof shoes are as useless as they are uncomfortable. It was amusing to see how quickly the regard for mud and water left even those of our party who were taking their first dip into the real “bush.” For the first few yards all picked their way carefully. There was even a pair of storm rubbers leaving its checkered print on the forest mould! Then some one stepped on the loose end of a corduroy sapling which rose in air and fell with a sharp spat. Everyone dodged the shower of mud and straightway went over ankles in water. The cool fluid trickled between our toes and we all laughed with relief. The rubbers found an early grave in the mud-hole and we all strode happily along, wishing we had a hundred eyes, to see all that was going on around and above us. [Illustration: FIG. 76. CROSSING A STREAM ON THE HOORIE JUNGLE ROAD.] A perfect medley of calls and cries came from the tree-tops high overhead as we tramped along. In places the trees were magnificent, looking like a maze of columns in some great cathedral, roofed over with a lofty dome of foliage. On this first walk the final impression was of a host of strange sights and sounds, a few of which we were able to disentangle on succeeding days. We had poured over Waterton, Schomburgk and Bates but we realized anew the utter futility of trying to reconstruct with pen and ink the grandeur and beauty, and forever and always the mystery, of a tropical forest.