settled things amicably with the mountain ; it roared its rage
at Mungo, and Mungo answered back, quivering with a rage
as great, under our feet. One feels here as if one were constantly
dropping, unasked and unregarded, among painful and
violent discussions between the elemental powers of the universe.
Mungo growls and swears in thunder at the sky, and
sulks in white mist all the morning, and then the sky answers-
back, hurling down lightnings and rivers of water, with total disregard
of Mungo’s visitors. The way the water rushes down from
the mountain wall through the watercourses in the jungle just
above, and then at the edge of the forest spreads out into a
sheet of water that is an inch deep, and that > flies on past us
in miniature cascades, trying the while to put out our fire,,
and so on, is— quite interesting. (I exhausted my vocabulary
on those boys yesterday.)
As soon as we saw what we were in for, we had thrown
dry wood on to the fire, and it blazed just as the rain came
down, so with our assistance it fought a good fight with its-
fellow elements, spitting and hissing like a wild cat. It could
have managed the water fairly well, but the wind came, very
nearly putting an end to it by carrying away its protecting
bough house, which settled on “ Professor ” Kefalla, who burst:
out in a lecture on the foolishness of mountaineering and the
quantity of devils in this region. Just in the midst of these
joys another boy came through the bush with another demijohn
of water. We did not receive him even civilly ; I burst
out laughing, and the boys went off in a roar, and we shouted
at him, f Where them chop ? ” “ He live for come,” said the
boy, and we then gave him a hearty welcome and a tot of rum,
and an hour afterwards two more boys appear, one carrying a
sack of rice and beef for the men, and the other a box for me
from Herr Liebert, containing a luxurious supply of biscuits,
candles, tinned meats, and a bottle of wine and one of beer.
We are now all happy, though exceeding damp, and the
boys sit round the fire, with their big iron pot full of beef and
rice, busy cooking while they talk. Wonderful accounts o f
our prodigies of valour I hear given by Xenia, and terrible
accounts of what they have lived through from the others,
and the men who have brought up the demijohns and the
chop recount the last news from Buea. James’s wife has run
away again.
I have taken possession of two demijohns of water and the
rum demijohn, arranging them round the head of my bed. The
worst of it is those tiresome bees, as soon as the rain is over,
come in hundreds after the rum, and frighten me continually.
The worthless wretches get intoxicated on what they can suck
from round the cork, and then they stagger about on the ground
buzzing malevolently. When the boys have had the chop
and a good smoke, we turn to and make up the loads for tomorrow’s
start up the mountain, and then, after more hot tea,
I turn in on my camp bed— listening to the soft sweet murmur
of the trees and the pleasant, laughing chatter of the men.
September 25 th.— Rolled off the bed twice last night into
the bush. The rain has washed the ground away from under
its off legs, so that it tilts ; and there were quantities of large
longicorn beetles about during the night— the sort with spiny
backs ; they kept on getting themselves hitched on to my
blankets and when I wanted civilly to remove them they made
a horrid fizzing noise and showed fightf§-cocking their horns in
a defiant way. I awake finally about 5 a.m. soaked through
to the skin. The waterproof sheet has had a label sewn
to it, so is not waterproof, and it has been raining softly but
amply for hours. I wish the camp bed had had a ticket sewn
on, and nothing but my profound admiration for Kaiser Wilhelm,
Emperor of Germany, its owner, prevents me from making
holes in it, for it sags in the middle, and constitutes an
excellent rain-water cistern. I have been saying things to
it, during the night, about this habit, but the bed is so imbued
with the military spirit that it says, “ My orders are to be
waterproof, and waterproof I’ll be ” : so I decide to leave it
behind, carefully drying it and protecting it as much as
possible.
About seven we are off again, with Xenia, head man,
cook, Monrovia boy and a labourer from Buea— the water-
carriers have gone home after having had their morning
chop.
We make for the face of the wall by a route to the left o f
that I took on Monday, and when we are clambering up it,