148 In the Heart of Africa 



are very brittle and porous in nature, offer very little foothold, 

 and cause a good deal of sliding and stumbling. The edges 

 are as sharp as knives, and cut and tear one's boots and clothes 

 in a terrible fashion. 



The entire lava field is grown over with a species of lichen 

 which has a whitish appearance in the sunlight, and gives the 

 exact impression of an immense ice-field or glacier, an impression 

 which the use of long alpenstocks rendered still more realistic. 

 It naturally followed that in surmounting the obstacles of this 

 difficult journey everyone had to find a path for himself, and 

 before long we were so widely separated from one another that 

 recognition of the individual khaki-coated figures popping up 

 and down among the lava blocks was only possible by the aid 

 of a telescope. As I had good going I arrived first at the 

 southern slope of the mountain. At this spot a chain of eighteen 

 parasitic cinder craters rise up like pearls on a chain, in a 

 crevasse running from north-west to south-east. The lowest of 

 them opens out in a wide semicircle to the south-east, and the 

 spot where the lava stream makes its egress can be distinctly 

 seen. A second one, apparently of more recent date, higher 

 up the slope of Namlagira, has broken through the common wall 

 of the crater chain and has taken a south-westerly direction. It 

 originates from a steep-walled shaft of only a few metres cir- 

 cumference, from which a heavy white vapour with a sulphurous 

 acid smell poured out incessantly. The Askari looked into the 

 smoking depths with manifest distrust, and a man from the 

 Burunga neighbourhood, whom we had taken with us as a guide, 

 could not be persuaded to approach anywhere near in his 

 tremendous awe of the scheitani (devil) who without doubt dwelt 

 there. 



Dr. von Raven and von Wiese came up soon after, whilst 

 Grauer and Kirschstein, who were lower down, hungrily awaiting 

 the arrival of the luncheon basket, put in their appearance later. 

 We at once commenced the ascent to the summit of the crater, 

 and proceeded without very great difficulty. Certainly a way 

 had to be cut through the bush region with axe and knife, but 



