CTi. x] NEllI 229 



})asin.s, and the .slii\ ering porters slept in numbed dis- 

 comfort. There was constant loo- and rain, and on the 

 highest plateau tlie bleak landscape, slu'ouded in driving 

 mist, was northern to all the senses. Tlie ground was 

 rolling, and througli the deep valleys ran brawling 

 brooks of clear water ; one little foaming stream, 

 suddenly tearing down a hillside, might liave been that 

 which Childe Roland crossed before he came to the dark 

 tower. 



There was not much game, and it generally moved 

 abroad by night. One frosty evening we killed a duiker 

 by shining its eyes. We saw old elephant-tracks. The 

 high, wet lexels swarmed with mice and shrews, just as 

 our arctic and alpine meadows swarm with them. The 

 species were really widely different from ours, but many 

 of them showed curious analogies in form and habits ; 

 there was a short-tailed shrew much like our mole 

 shrew, and a long-haired, short-tailed rat like a very big 

 meadow mouse. They were so plentiful that we 

 frequently saw them, and the grass was cut up by their 

 runways. They were abroad during the day, probably 

 finding the nights too cold, and in an hour Heller 

 trapped a dozen or two individuals belonging to seven 

 species and ii\e different genera. There were not many 

 birds so high up. There were deer-ferns; and Spanish 

 moss hung from the trees and even from the bamboos. 

 The flowers included utterly strange forms, as, for 

 instance, giant lobelias ten feet high. Others we know 

 in our gardens— geraniums and red-hot-pokers, which 

 in places turned the glades to a fire colour. Yet others 

 either were like, or looked like, our own wild flowers : 

 orange lady-slippers, red gladiolus on stalks six feet 

 high, pansy-like violets, and blackberries and yellow 

 raspberries. There were stretches of bushes bearing 



