1 84 THE SNOWFIELDS AND GLACIERS OF KENYA part ii 



for he had scored some successes, and made one failure, in 

 forging cheques in Mombasa. But for Omari's good sense in 

 stopping at the entrance to the forests, I should certainly have 

 spent a night in the open, foodless, and in the pouring rain. 



My first impulse was to keep the men in camp here for 

 a few days, while I returned to continue mapping and collecting 

 in the higher zones. But the men were suffering so much from 

 the exposure, that I did not think this fair to them. They 

 nearly all had chilblains and mountain sickness ; some of them 

 were badly frost-bitten, and there were two cases of haemorrhage 

 from the lungs. This was so severe that the milder remedies 

 proved useless, and it only yielded to hypodermic injections of 

 ergot. I was so much alarmed at the condition of the men, 

 that I felt bound to remove them as quickly as possible to a 

 less Arctic climate. Though very loth to leave the mountain, 

 I felt now justified in doing so, as I had accomplished the four 

 main objects of my visit, which were to collect representatives 

 of the fauna and flora of the different zones, determine the 

 geological structure of the mountain, see if there were any 

 glaciers upon it, and especially if these had had at any former 

 time a greater extension than at present. 



Omari had already marked the position of the entrance to 

 the path we had made in the ascent. By means of the cut 

 bamboos and barked trees, we found our way back along it. 

 As we had used up our food, we were very lightly laden, and 

 two rapid marches brought us back again to our reserve camp 

 on the sunny steppes of Laikipia. 



We had to rest there to nurse the invalids, for it was advis- 

 able that every man should be fit for duty before we entered 

 again into the land of the excitable Kikuyu. I had hoped for 

 an excursion to Settima, but this would have taken nearly 

 a month longer, and it would have involved another march 

 through the bamboo forests. My time was nearly exhausted, 

 and I doubted whether any of the men would follow me, while 

 their recent hardships were so fresh in their memories ; so I 

 reluctantly abandoned the plan, and promised the men that we 

 would now return to Mombasa as directly as we could. 



In concluding this chapter on Mount Kenya, there are two 

 points in connection with the mountaineering to which it may 

 be useful to refer. The first is the warning that the snow and 



