84 CLIMBING IN RUWENZORI 



we could carry ourselves, necessarily limited our 

 excursions to such as we might make from the 

 highest camp to which our porters would consent to 

 go, and that, as will be seen, was not very far. 



It was in one of the rare intervals of sunshine 

 that we set out full of hope for the upper regions, 

 but we had not gone far before we were drenched 

 through to the skin, a condition to which one soon 

 becomes accustomed in Ruwenzori. Above the 

 bracken-covered slope, described in the last chapter, 

 the path proceeds along a narrow, knife-edged ridge 

 with a sheer drop of almost i,ooo feet to the 

 Mubuku torrent on one side, and a steep slope to 

 a large tributary stream on the other. This ridge 

 is apparently the remains of a gigantic moraine, 

 through which the Mubuku has cut a deep U-shaped 

 trough. On the crest of the ridge, at an altitude of 

 rather less than 9,000 feet, is an immense erratic 

 boulder, called Vitaba or Nakitawa, as big as two 

 four -roomed cottages rolled into one. It is a 

 favourite camping-place of the natives, and, except 

 when a strong wind is blowing, its overhanging 

 sides afford a fair amount of shelter. Evidences 

 of former glaciation become increasingly numerous 

 above this altitude, but there are some, in the 

 form of ancient moraines, etc., at a much lower 

 level, according to Scott Elliot even so low as 

 5,200 feet. 



One of the most remarkable features of Ruwenzori 

 is the abrupt change that is often seen from one 



