The atmosphere was as airless, moist, and sultry as that within a Turkish bath. Whether they walked or stood during the day they were always wet with perspiration and gasping for breath. At night cold exhalations rose from the slimy soil and chilled them to the marrow. It was the dry season, or none of them could have survived this march. Yet it is never dry in those forests. In the mornings the densest of fogs shrouded everything, and clung to them like a vast grey muffler. This entered their lungs and nearly choked them with its thickness and heavy effluvia. While it lay round nothing stirred. Nature seemed dead, animal and insect life asleep; a weird and ominous hush brooded over the scene like the sombre stillness of a grave. They were entombed and spell-bound with the universal and dim death-silence. When this vapour dispersed, the labyrinth would suddenly start into life and swarm with motion and sounds. Birds would shriek at the welcome light, baboons chatter and swing themselves aloft with merry and noisy antics; butterflies would flutter and gleam with gorgeous colours as they sported through the open spaces. Swarms of fierce mosquitoes and other venomous insects buzzed and flew about, stinging viciously. Ants dropped down their necks or rushed up their trousers in countless hordes and with maddening effect. These tormentors never left them alone day or night. Under the deadly bite of the tsetse fly their most seasoned horses fell one by one, and had to be left behind before they had gone very far. This, however, did not discourage them, and when they came to the rock climbing they felt they were better without these poor beasts. All night long the forest resounded with the roaring, trumpeting, and other strange cries of wild beasts, while round their fires they could see at times an outer circle of flaming phosphorescent eyes. During the day they could see sometimes what they took to be a stout tendril or limb detach itself from the tree and glide noiselessly out of their path. Sometimes also what they thought was a mud-covered log in their path would suddenly gape horribly at them, showing serrated rows of gleaming teeth inside the ugly long snout, while the seedy monster wallowed ponderously into the turbid bog. These were only a few of the countless perils which beset them every foot of their leafy journey. The reptile, animal, and insect world encompassed them with as deadly intent as the noxious vapours. But what they had to look out for and dread more than these were the human savages who infested and disputed the upper branches with the man-like apes. But our heroes were resolute, and held on undauntedly day after day. They kept to one course with the dogged perseverance of Englishmen, and their followers followed after them with blind confidence.