Whenever the stems of the trees failed to be thickly overgrown by some of these different ferns, they were rarely wanting in garlands of the crimson-berried pepper. Far as the eye could reach, it rested solely upon green which did not admit a gap. The narrow paths that wound themselves partly through and partly around the growing thickets were formed by steps consisting of bare and protruding roots which retained the light, loose soil together. Mouldering stems, thickly clad with moss, obstructed the passage at wellnigh every turn. “The air was no longer that of the sunny steppe, nor that of the shady grove; it was stifling as the atmosphere of a palm-house. Its temperature might vary from 70° to 80° Fahr., but the air was so overloaded with an oppressive moisture exhaled by the rank foliage that the traveller could not feel otherwise than relieved to escape.” * * * * * In the second volume of his work Schweinfurth adds:-- “The cumbrous stems are thickly overgrown with wild pepper, and the spreading branches are loaded with bead moss (_Usnea_) and with that remarkable lichen which resembles an elephant’s ear. High among the boughs are the huge dwellings of the tree-termites (white ants). Some stems already decayed serve as supports for immense garlands of _Mucuna_ (a bean), and overhung by impenetrable foliage, form roomy bowers, where dull obscurity reigns supreme. Such is the home of the chimpanzee.” Schweinfurth might have extended his researches further into the unknown but for a disastrous campfire in the Dyur country, which destroyed the greater part of his collections, journals, drawings, and instruments. Eventually, with such of his collections as he was able to save from the conflagration, Schweinfurth turned his steps northward again, and reached Europe in 1871. He subsequently did much to increase our knowledge of the botany of Abyssinia and Arabia, but never resumed the rôle of African explorer. [Illustration: SCHWEINFURTH’S MAP.] CHAPTER XIX STANLEY CONFIRMS SPEKE Dr. Schweinfurth evidently shared Burton’s opinions on the subject of the Victoria Nyanza. Speke’s great discovery may be said to have reached its low-water mark of depreciation in the map issued in 1873 to illustrate Schweinfurth’s book, “The Heart of Africa.” On this map a fairly correct estimate of the shape and area of the Albert Nyanza is given, together with some hint of the abrupt commencement of the Congo watershed west of Lake Albert. But the mountainous character of Unyoro is greatly exaggerated, and the area of the great Victoria Nyanza is taken up by five lakes and lakelets. Speke was dead, and Grant was tired of asseverating that the Victoria Nyanza was one huge continuous sheet of water.