1.S areaf of am°mums. The winged amomum I see here in
rica for the first time. Horrid slippery things amomum
^sticks to walk on, when they are lying on the ground; and
there is a lot of my old enemy the calamus about.
On each side are deep forested dells and ravines, and rocks
through the ground in every direction, and things in
general are slippery, and I wonder now and again, as I assume
with unnecessary violence a recumbent position, why I came
o rica , but patches of satin-leaved begonias and clumps of
lovely tree-ferns reconcile me to my lot. Cook does not feel
these forest charms, and gives me notice after an hour’s
experience of mountain forest-belt work; what cook would
not?
As we get higher we have to edge and squeeze every few
minutes through the aerial roots of some tremendous kind of
tree, plentiful hereabouts. One of them we passed through' I
am sure would have run any Indian banyan hard for extent of
ground covered, if it were measured. In the region where
these trees are frequent, the undergrowth is less dense than it
is lower down.
Imagine a vast, seemingly limitless’ cathedral with its
■countless columns covered, nay, composed of the most exquisite
-dark-green, large-fronded moss,, with here and there a
•delicate fern embedded in it as an extra decoration. The
white gauze-like mist comes down from the upper mountain
towards us : creeping, twining round, and streaming through
the moss-covered tree columns— long bands of it reaching
-along sinuous, but evenly, for fifty and sixty feet or more
and then ending in a puff like the smoke of a gun. Soon'
however, all the mist-streams coalesce and make the
atmosphere all their own, wrapping us round in a clammy
•chin embrace; it is not that wool-blanket, smothering
-affair that we were wrapped in down by Buana, but exquisitely
delicate. The difference it makes to the beauty of the forest
is just the same difference you would get if you put a delicate
veil over a pretty woman’s face or a sack over her head. In
fact, the mist here was exceedingly becoming to the forest’s
beauty. Now and again growls of thunder roll out from and
■quiver in the earth beneath our feet. Mungo is making a big
tornado, and is stirring and simmering it softly so as to make
it strong. I only hope he will not overdo it, as he does six
times in seven, and make it too heavy to get out on to the
Atlantic, where all tornadoes ought to go. If he does the thing
will go and burst on us in this forest to-night.
The forest now grows less luxuriant though still close we
have left the begonias and the tree-ferns, and are in another
zone. The trees now, instead of being clothed in rich, dark-
green moss, are heavily festooned with long, greenish-white
lichen. It pours with rain.
A t last we reach the place where the sergeant says we ought
to camp for the night. I have been feeling the time for camping
was very ripe for the past hour, and Kefalla openly said as
much an hour and a half ago, but he got such scathing things
said to him about civilians’ legs by the sergeant that I did not
air my own opinion.
We are now right at the very edge of the timber belt. My
head man and three boys are done to a turn. I f I had had a
bull behind me or Mr. Fildes in front, I might have done
another five or seven miles, but riot more.
The rain comes down with extra virulence as soon as we set
to work to start the fire and open the loads. I and Peter have
great times getting out the military camp-bed from its .tight,
bolster-like case, while Kefalla gives advice, until, being irritated
by the bed’s behaviour, I blow up Kefalla and send him to
chop firewood. However, we get the thing out and put up
after cutting a. place clear to set it o n : owing to the world
being on a stiff slant hereabouts, it takes time to make it
stand straight. I get four stakes cut, and drive them in at
the four corners of the bed, and then stretch over it Herr von
Lucke’s waterproof ground-sheet, guy the ends out to pegs
with string, feel profoundly grateful to both Herr Liebert
for the bed and Herr von Lucke for the sheet, and place the
basje-ae-e under the protection o f the German Government’s
two belongings. Then I find the boys have not got a fire with
all their fuss, and I have to demonstrate to them the lessons
I have learnt among the Fans regarding fire-making. We
build a fire-house and then all goes well. I notice they do
not make a fire Fan fashion, but build it in a circle.