2i6 In the Heart of Africa 



munication by signs and grunts, and when it came to the worst 

 I used the magic word 'matabisch.' I equipped them with small 

 rifles (for the nectariniidcB), breakfast, and a case for the 

 plants, and marched out at six o'clock. I really had intended 

 to start earlier, but my three savages had not turned up. At 

 five o'clock I watched the moon sinking over the Semliki plain, 

 and, smoking a morning cigar, I gazed on the awakening of a 

 new day, which broke in wonderful clearness. The sun was still 

 below the horizon and it would take another good hour before 

 it would be able to peep over Ruwenzori into our camps ; but 

 the Wawunga mountains were already looming up like blue 

 silhouettes against the clear sky, and opposite to them the 

 bolder outline of the ridge which bounds the Butagu valley in 

 the north. 



" We started out in the clear light of the dawn. On reach- 

 ing the ' lower Belgian camp ' we could see, away over the ridges, 

 the white, snow-capped heads which had appeared so gigantic in 

 the fog previously, and from the upper camp I soon saw that all 

 difficulties were overcome and that I had been quite close to the 

 goal on the cold, misty day when I first attempted the climb. 

 Ulimbi rose gently up covered with mosses and grey alchemilla, 

 and at intervals grew senecio trees, stalk lobelias, helichrysum 

 bushes, and shrubs of Hypericum keniense, radiant in the warm 

 sunshine, although frost still lay in shady places. Up we went, 

 leisurely ascending almost imperceptibly to the edge of the 

 plateau ; and then a spectacle of such grandeur confronted us 

 that words fail to picture it. The cliff fell down precipitously 

 to the dark surface of a dammed lake, and opposite rose wild, 

 black and jagged walls of rock, between which the glaciers 

 glimmered blue, torrents rushed down from the dazzling snow 

 lines of three kingly heads, where silence reigned supreme. 



"We proceeded along the edge of Ulimbi to the 'chupa,' the 

 bottle which serves as visitors' book, an object which will doubt- 

 less not long be wanting on any African alp (on Ninagongo 

 there must have been a good dozen). Unfortunately I had to 

 break it, as it was impossible to pull the paper out ; Schubotz 



