JOURNEY TO THE CLIFFS 285 



significant of attributes so different, combined in one 

 individual, I had to employ many forcible adjectives 

 when I wished to encourage him to do some work. 



We filed out of our camp a little after sunrise on the 

 morning of the 15th (April) and by ten o'clock we reached 

 the stream which flows at the base of the slope where we 

 may say Ameha actually begins. The men having opened 

 a good track through the low-lying stretch of forest as 

 far as this spot, we had performed the journey in fairly 

 quick time. The water of the stream was clear and cool, 

 and this tempted us to sit on its banks and have some- 

 thing to eat. We did not waste much time over our 

 meal, and the men were soon busy ahead cutting a path 

 up the incline. This was comparatively easy work, as the 

 forest growth on the slopes is not of the tangled nature of 

 that covering the almost level stretch we had left behind 

 us, nor is there a dense imdergrowth to contend with. 

 I noticed that the ground was covered with a thick bed 

 of leaves, and that branches, some of which were of con- 

 siderable size, were scattered about in profusion. From 

 time to time we caught glimpses of the cliffs towering above 

 us. The wall of rock seemed so near that I expected at 

 any moment to have the satisfaction of standing face to 

 face with it and touching its cold bare surface. In this^ 

 however, I was deceived, for although we toiled all day 

 long, when at last we pitched our camp late in the after- 

 noon, that deluding wall appeared as near, or I should 

 say rather, as far off, as when we had sighted it early in 

 the day. The men attached poles to four trees in the 

 form of a square, and upon them they spread palm- 

 branches as a covering. They then slung their hammocks 

 and mine between the trees, and so we passed our first 

 night under the very shadow of Ameha. 



