camp, and now this hole has proved dry. There is, says the
sergeant, no chance of getting any more water on this side of
the mountain, save down at the river at Buea.
This means failure unless tackled, and it is evidently a trick
played on me by the boys, who intentionally failed to let me
know of this want of water before leaving Buea, where it
seems they have all learnt it. Had I known, of course I should
have brought up a sufficient supply. Now they evidently
think that there is nothing to be done but to return to Buea,
and go down to Victoria, and get their pay, and live happily
ever after, without having to face the horror of the upper
regions of the mountain. They have worked their oracle
with other white folk, I find, for they quote the other white
folk’s docile conduct as an example to me. I express my
opinion of them and of their victims in four words— send
Monrovia boy, who I know is to be trusted, back to Buea. with
a scribbled note to Herr Liebert asking him to send me up
two demijohns of water. I send cook with him as far as the
camp in the forest we have just left with orders to bring up-
three bottles of soda water I have left there, and to instruct
the men there that as soon as the water arrives from Buea they
are to bring it on up to the camp I mean to make at the top
of the wall.
The men are sulky, and Sasu, Peter, Kefalla, and head man
say they will wait and come on as soon as cook brings the
soda water, and I go on, and presently see Xenia and Black
boy are following me. We get on to the intervening hillocks
and commence to ascend the face of the wall.
The angle of this wall is great, and its appearance from
below is impressive from its enormous breadth, and its abrupt
rise without bend or droop for a good 2,000 feet into the air.
It is covered with short, yellowish grass through which the
burnt-up, scoriaceous lava rock protrudes in rough masses.
I got on up the wall, which when you are on it is not so-
perpendicular as it looks from below, my desire being to see
what sort of country there was on the top of it, between it
and the final peak. Sasu had reported to Herr Liebert that
it was a wilderness of rock, in which it would be impossible to
fix a tent, and spoke vaguely of caves. Here and there on
the way up I come to holes, similar to the one my men had
been down for water. I suppose these holes have been caused
by gases from an under hot layer of lava bursting up through
the upper cool layer. As I get higher, the grass becomes,
shorter and more sparse, and the rocks more ostentatiously
displayed. Here and there among them are sadly tried
bushes, bearing a beautiful yellow flower, like a large yellow
wild rose, only scentless. It is not a rose at all, I may remark.
The ground, where there is any basin made by the rocks,,
grows a great sedum, with a grand head of whity-pink flower,
also a tall herb, with soft downy leaves silver grey in colour,,
and having a very pleasant aromatic scent, and here and there
patches of good honest parsley. Bright blue, flannelly-looking
flowers stud the grass in sheltered places and a very pretty
large green orchid is plentiful. Above us is a bright
blue sky with white cloud rushing hurriedly across it to the-
N,E. and a fierce sun. When I am about^ half-way up, I
think of those boys, and, wanting rest, sit down by an
inviting-looking rock grotto, with a patch of the yellow flowered.
shrub growing on its top. Inside it grow little ferns and
mosses, all damp ; but alas ! .no water pool, and very badly I
want water by this time.
Below me a belt of white cloud had now formed, so that I
could see neither the foot-hillocks nor the forest, and presently
out of this mist came Xenia toiling up, carrying my black
bag. “ Where them Black boy live ? | said I. “ Black boy say
him foot be tire too much,” said Xenia, as he threw himself
down in the little shade the rock could give. I took a cupful
of sour claret out of the bottle in the bag, and told Xenia to-
come on up as soon as he was rested, and meanwhile to yell to-
the others down below and tell them to come on. Xenia did,,
but sadly observed, “ softly softly still hurts the snail,” and 1
left him and went on up the mountain.
When I had got to the top of the rock under which I had
sheltered from the blazing sun, the mist opened a little, and I
saw my men looking like as many little dolls. They were
still sitting on the hillock where I had left them. Buea
showed from this elevation well. The guard house and the
mission house, like little houses in a picture, and the make ofT