90 CLIMBING IN RUWENZORI 



from one trunk to another made one feel thoroughly 

 ashamed. 



As we ascended the steep slope at the other end 

 of the terrace the heath-trees became rather less 

 dense, and in the intervals between them appeared 

 a few helichrysums, tall senecios with clusters of 

 yellow flowers, and a beautiful little blue violet 

 ( Viola abyssinicd) very similar to the English dog- 

 violet. At the top of this slope, about ii,8oo feet, 

 the climber enters upon a new world, or, to speak 

 more truly, it is a tract that seems to be a relic of a 

 long past age. One would not be in the least 

 surprised to see pterodactyls flying screaming over- 

 head (they must have been noisy creatures, I think), 

 or iguanodons floundering through the morasses 

 and browsing on the tree-tops. But there are no 

 living creatures to be seen or heard ; it is a place of 

 awful silence and solitude. It is an almost level 

 meadow or ' swampy garden,' as Sir H. H. Johnston 

 called it, a mile or more long, and several hundred 

 yards wide. Out of the moss, which everywhere 

 forms a dense and soaking carpet, grow thick 

 clumps of helichrysum with white and pink flowers, 

 and standing up like attenuated tombstones are the 

 tall spikes of giant lobelias {Lobelia decke7tii). 

 Groundsels {Senecio adiiivalis) grow here into trees 

 20 feet high, St. John's wort (^Hyperictmi) is a tree 

 even higher, and brambles [Rtibtis doggetti) bear 

 flowers 2 inches across, and fruit as big as walnuts. 

 Through the middle of the meadow the Mubuku 



