Ruwenzori - Mountains of the Moon Part I

"Around this bay the Anthropophagi Aethiopians dwell, and from there towards the west are the Mountains of the Moon from which the lakes of the Nile receive snow water."

--Ptolemy (90 AD-168 AD) Book 4, chap. viii

"Here the silence was the voice"

Let's take a journey to Africa, shall we?

In an old car named Boanerges we haul ourselves from Kampala, Uganda to the foothills of the Ruwenzori  or the "Mountains of the Moon". It is December, 1934 and we are part of a "...British Museum Expedition to East Africa organized for the purpose of studying the flora and fauna of the equatorial mountains in relation to their peculiar environment." We are hoping to investigate two "hitherto almost unknown valleys ascending from the south and the southeast", the Nyamgasani and the Namwamba. We know there is a string of eight lakes near the top of the range, discovered by air a few years earlier.

 

 Ruwenzori "Mountains of the Moon" due west from Kampala

We have turned south at Fort Portal and are nearing the southern tip of the Ruwenzori. We are hoping to locate our base camp at the farm of a Captain Chapman. After many hours of unloading and loading our supply lorry and vehicles so we can cross the flimsiest of bridges, we continue until the road ends.  At this point, traveling by foot, our porters hired in Kampala carrying our supplies, we hike into the foothills to Captain Chapman's farm.

On the way to Captain Chapman's farm

At the farm, Captain Chapman has agreed to let us use a logging camp up the hill from his house as our base camp. He will also manage the base camp for us, sending up supplies in relays throughout our stay. At the farm we hire more porters. "They were Bakonjo, pleasant and friendly fellows, but much less civilized than the majority of the Uganda peoples...They are an ancient race, since they have been little affected by the Hamitic waves from the north and north-east, merely retiring before them, like the Celts, to the mountains, where they have preserved their old language."

One of the porters is a "rain man". We are here during the dry season in Uganda but expect bad weather anyway based on reports from previous expeditions.  Luckily for us, when dark clouds roll in as we trek up the mountain, the rain man climbs the nearest small hill, stands at the top with a flute-like whistle and blows a few blasts to keep the rain away.  "An uncanny success seemed to attend his efforts...and we ourselves almost began to believe in the power of the whistle."

As Captain Chapman has warned us, we have to cut a trail through the thick undergrowth and bamboo. "It was all unknown ground. There was no track. We had to cut a path all the way. We soon got used to the routine. We cut generally for two or three days; then all the porters were massed for moving camp. The next day we started cutting again. One of us would...go ahead with the porters. Somerville (our artist) would draw...while I would gather plants and take photographs."

Continuing on this way up, up the mountain we come and finally reach higher elevations where the going is easier and the plants become giant specimens of common plants found in our more temperate zones. 15-foot tall flowering lobelias, 50-foot tall heather "trees". Think of the pretty blue lobelias we plant in the spring, only with huge flower spikes, and normally one-foot tall heather bushes turned into trees 50 feet high.

As we continue to gather specimens and photograph strange new plants and mosses, we see very little signs of animal life. There are Colobus and "blue" monkeys at the lower elevations. Also large purple slugs on the bamboo. Higher up we see "hyrax", a small rodent-like animal used for meat and fur by the porters. We see little blue "sunbirds" (African hummingbirds) work the blue flower spikes of the giant lobelias. Very little else except for crows and birds resembling starlings.

Ruwenzori Close-Up

As we finally approach the highest elevations, the porters become skittish about the mountains and lakes. They are very superstitious and will not camp near any lake. We find rock outcroppings for their shelter and set up camp "proper" near a large lake, one of the eight discovered by air. "We were standing almost on the Equator, yet it was as cold as a really cold winter's day in England, and a little ahead there was permanent snow and ice."

Two of us set out to climb to the top of the highest peak above our camp, Weismann Peak. All the snow peaks, Mt. Stanley, Mt. Speke, and Mt. Baker are visible from the top. On the south side of Weismann Peak is a glacier, one of those feeding the high mountain lakes, and eventually, the Nile River. As we take in the long view, we see a strange cloud next to our camp down below. We realize it is smoke, and rush down as fast as we can, only to find a burnt out campsite. Moving down to the rock shelter, we find our colleague and the porters are safe. A gust of wind blew flames from the campfire beyond the safety zone and set dry moss and brush on fire as well as our tent and sleeping gear. No samples were lost, thank goodness! But, it means an early departure down the mountain.

As we descend, we gather more plant samples, and laugh at our strange outfits -- remnants of burnt clothes, and tent flaps! When we reach the lower elevations, we have to cut our trail again, although not as time consuming as when we climbed up the mountain.

Back at base camp, we take a long relaxed rest. Smoke from intentional grass fires has cut visibility and our mountains are lost in the haze. A huge swarm of locusts comes through the area turning the sky even darker as they pass over. A very strange thing happens. A stork falls out of a tree, nearly unconscious. It is determined he has gorged himself on locusts. After several hours he recovers but is too weak to fly. He stays for several days and enjoys the attention, allowing us to scratch his chin! Finally, he flies away, headed to one of the large lakes in the area.

We hear news of our other group, back from their northern approach to the mountain. They have also had a successful trip. Our southern approach is not the easiest way to reach the high elevations, but we think it must be the most beautiful. Feeling satisfied with the results of our journey thus far, we settle in to label and pack specimens and reflect on Ruwenzori.

And now, it is time to make plans for the next stage of our journey--a plant safari on Mount Elgon.

Reading Rest Area

We have grand kids this weekend, siblings from around the world in town, and a birthday party, so lots going on here at Reading Road Map Headquarters. What is NOT going on much is reading, as in reading for long stretches of time without interruption. Are there ever any such "stretches of time"?

Given the state of things here, this is what is going on right now on the Reading Road Map journey:

Finished "Arctic Dreams" and a post to come soon.

Reading Colette short stories, as well as "Earthly Paradise", an autobiography of sorts comprised of short pieces written by Colette.

Another M.F.K. Fisher book, "Two Towns in Provence".

Listening to "Five Red Herrings" by Dorothy L. Sayers, a free audio book download from my local library. I like this production because it is done as a radio play rather than a narrator reading the book.

Just barely beginning "The Mountains of the Moon", a trip to central Africa in the early part of the 20th century.  I pulled out one of our beautiful old 1950's map books to follow along with the British Museum Herbarium expedition to Ruwenzori, 'the mountains of the moon'.  The map book takes up almost half of the dining room table when opened out so I suspect it will not get to live there long.  This journey will go on hold until later this month.  The map books will be the subject of more than one post. They are close to the top of my list of favorite things.

Kenya and Uganda

Ruwenzori

I am also strolling through cookbooks as I plan the weekly menu.  What I am NOT doing, is going to book-related blogs to read reviews of new books, ordering new books, and moving them to the bookshelf to sit unread for who knows how long.  So far, so good!

Looking at the above list, one might think a bit of  "reading ADD" has returned. It looks like a scatterbrain list, but really, it does not feel like it in real life.

There might be a beautiful picture book about Leonard and Virginia Woolf's garden at Monk's House coming my way, but it will be a gift, so it does not count.  Right?

I Cannot Wait!

   

Dreaming of the Arctic and Africa

On Fridays My Reading Road Map will go outdoors.  We will visit far away places or nearby gardens. We will investigate the natural world.  I found two books in the stacks Wednesday that shout "faraway places" so I want to give them a mention today.

Arctic Dreams

The first book is "Arctic Dreams:  Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape" by Barry Lopez, a philosophical nature writer who lives nearby in the Cascade foothills of western Oregon.  Lopez won the 1986 National Book Award for Nonfiction for this book.

My copy is a well-used 1986 Scribner's large paperback, and a whopping 464 pages.  I am on page 313, so on the home stretch to the finish.  I have started this book and put it down several times over the years.  For some reason it was never the right time.  Now I know to read it is a privilege and this is why.

Barry Lopez writes about Arctic land and seascapes, the creatures who populate them, and the history of Western exploration and exploitation of them with a quiet contemplative voice. Maybe I needed to be quiet to read it.

Here is a small sample from the preface.  Lopez is writing about a summer evening walk through the tundra in the western Brooks Range of Alaska.

“…it was on that evening that I went on a walk for the first time among the tundra birds.  They all build their nests on the ground, so their vulnerability is extreme.  I gazed down at a single horned lark no bigger than my fist.  She stared back resolute as iron.  As I approached, golden plovers abandoned their nests in hysterical ploys, artfully feigning a broken wing to distract me from the woven grass cups that couched their pale, darkly speckled eggs.  Their eggs glowed with a soft, pure light, like the window light in a Vermeer painting…I took to bowing on these evening walks.  I would bow slightly with my hands in my pockets, toward the birds and the evidence of life in their nests—because of their fecundity, unexpected in this remote region, and because of the serene arctic light that came down over the land like breath, like breathing.”

He "took to bowing" to the birds.  The profoundness of this has stayed with me throughout this book.  I will never forget the quiet reverence of those words.

Soon we will return to the Arctic.  We will talk about musk oxen and polar bears, narwhals and ring seals.  We will discuss ice and northern lights, the Thule people and ancient willow and birch forests so short one can walk over the top of them.  We will also think about this artwork by Frederic Edwin Church.

Finally, the chapter I am reading now is titled "The Intent of Monks".  Quietness indeed.

Mountains of the Moon

The second book from Wednesday's stacks is "Mountains of the Moon:  An Expedition to the Equatorial Mountains of Africa." by Patrick M. Synge.  Another book I have had for decades, in this case still unread.

As you see in the picture, this book came from Fermin Lasuen High School library in San Pedro, California.  It is one of my original 3,000 volume library and is considered an "ex-library" book to collectors.  These are looked down upon as much as Book Club editions in that world.  Mine is a third edition, printed in London in 1938.  It is badly damaged but contains two beautiful "coloured plates" one of which you can see in the picture, "The Lake of Death", Seventh Nyamgasani Lake.  There are 91 "collotype plate" illustrations and two maps, one a pull-out folding map.

Right now all I know about this book is the physical description I have shared with you.  From a book review on Goodreads:

“In 1934, Patrick Synge travelled on an expedition sponsored by the British Museum of Natural History to the Ruwenzori range in East Africa, purported to be the "mountains of the moon" spoken of by Herodotus.  Synge, a botanist, was immediately enchanted by the place. His book is, in large part, an enthusiastic and good-natured account of the things that most impressed him. Being a botanist, his most vivid writing concerns plants, but I must say that seldom have I read more captivating descriptions of local scenery, flora, and fauna.”

We will return to the "Mountains of the Moon" again, I promise.