we should have been hot enough, and missed this storm of
rain.
When the boys have had their chop, and are curling
themselves up comfortably round their now blazing fires,
Xenia must needs start a theory that there is a better place
than this to camp in ; he saw it when he was with an unsuccessful
expedition that got as far as this. Kefalla is fool
enough to go off with him to find this place; but they
soon return, chilled through again, and unsuccessful in their
quest. I gather that they have been to find caves. I wish
they had found caves, for I am not thinking of taking out
a patent for our present camp site.
The bitter wind and swishing rain keep on. We are to a
certain extent sheltered from the former, but the latter is of
that insinuating sort that nothing but a granite wall would
keep off.
Just at sundown, however, as is usual in this country, the
rain ceases for a while, and I take this opportunity to get out
my seaman’s jersey, and retire up over the rocks to have my
fight into it unobserved. It is a mighty fight to get that
thing on, or off, at the best of times, but to-day it is worse
than usual, because I have to get it on over my saturated
cotton blouse, and verily at one time I fear I shall
have to shout for assistance or be suffocated, so firmly does it
get jammed over my head. But I fight my way unaided
into it, and then turn to survey our position, and find I
have been carrying on my battle on the brink of an abysmal
hole whose mouth is concealed among the rocks and
scraggly shrubs just above our camp. I heave rocks down
it, as we in Fanland would offer rocks to an Ombwiri, and
hear them go “ knickity-knock, like a pebble in Carisbrook
well.” I think I detect a far away splash, but it was an
awesome way down. This mountain seems set with these
man-traps, and “ some day some gentleman’s nigger ” will get
killed down one.
The mist has now cleared away from the peak, but lies all
over the lower world, and I take bearings of the three highest
cones or peaks carefully. Then I go away over the rocky
ground southwards, and as I stand looking round, the mist
sea below is cleft in twain for a few minutes by some fierce
down-draught of wind from the peak, and I get a strange,
clear, sudden view right down to Ambas Bay. • It is just
like looking down from one world into another. I think
how Odin hung and looked down into Nifelheim, and then of
how hot, how deliciously hot, it was away down there, and
then the mist closes over it. I shiver and go back to
camp, for night is coming on, and I know my men will
require intellectual support in the matter of procuring
firewood.
The men are now quite happy; over each fire they have
made a tent with four sticks with a blanket on, a blanket that
is too wet to burn, though I have to make them brace the
blankets to windward for fear of their scorching.
The wood from the shrubs here is of an aromatic and a
resinous nature, which sounds nice, but it isn’t ; for the volumes
of smoke it gives off when burning are suffocating, and the boys,
who sit almost on the fire, are every few moments scrambling
to their feet and going apart to cough out smoke, like so many
novices in training for the profession of fire-eaters. However,
they soon find that if they roll themselves in their blankets,
and lie on the ground to windward they escape most of the
smoke. They have divided up into three parties: Kefalla
and Xenia, who have struck up a great friendship, take the
lower, the most exposed fire. Head man, Cook, and Monrovia
Boy have the upper fire, and the labourer has the middle one
— he being an outcast for medical reasons. They are all
steaming away and smoking comfortably.
I form the noble resolution to keep awake, and rouse up any-
gentleman who may catch on fire during the night, a catastrophe
which is inevitable, and see to wood being put on the
fires, so elaborately settle myself on my wooden chop-box,
wherein I have got all the lucifers which are not in the
soap-box. The very address on that chop-box, ought to
keep its inside dry and up to duty, for it is “ An den
Hochwohlgebornen Freiherrn von Stettin,” &c. Owing to there
not being a piece of ground the size of a sixpenny piece level
in this place, the arrangement of my box camp takes time, but
at last it is done to my complete satisfaction, close to a tree