chap, xv MOUNT LUSITANIA 207 



Butter and an old duster were the only medicaments and 

 bandage available, but they sufficed. It was a sorry out- 

 look and a painful experience, but things turned out all 

 right. I was not crippled nor prevented from holding pen 

 and pencil for a day, thanks to the horny hide produced 

 by a month's camp life. Spirit could burn on it as on the 

 outside of a boot. It raised indeed a score of blisters, but 

 they were judiciously scattered. 



With early morning (July 22) the sun returned, and the 

 wind dropped ; hills were again clear, and waters smooth. As 

 we sat over breakfast at the tent door a flock of little auks 

 came to amuse us. They appeared to be young birds at school. 

 There must have been a couple of score of them swimming 

 about in a tightly-packed group, and turning hither and thither 

 in unanimous evolutions. At some note of command given, 

 down they all simultaneously dived, remaining under for about 

 half a minute, and returning to the surface widely scattered, 

 but swiftly concentrating again. Gregory had darning to do. 

 I watched him. He was my superior in this matter also, 

 for as a child he had been taught the art, much to his then 

 disgust. In reply to his protests his mother gave him a 

 book of Moffat's to read, in which that African traveller 

 relates the trouble he was in, when thrown on his own 

 resources, through not having learnt to sew. It was a 

 curious coincidence that sent Gregory also to Africa to 

 apply his youthfully acquired skill. This day he would 

 have none of my exceptional apparatus, and sneered at my 

 six-inch needles and ice-axe thimble, selecting only from 

 my store a quite ordinary darning-needle and commonplace 

 thimble — such is the narrowing effect of prejudice early 

 acquired ! 



At eleven A.M. we set forth for a day's exploring inland, 

 congratulating ourselves on the kindly weather. Our way was 

 up the valley behind — the Flower Valley we named it, after the 



