94 CLIMBING IN RUWENZORI 



and on either side are jagged peaks with steep black 

 precipices and gentler slopes of snow. During all 

 the eight or nine days that our two expeditions to 

 Bujongolo together counted, I do not suppose that 

 the mountains were visible for half as many hours ; 

 but the place was so grim and solemn, and so almost 

 unearthly in its setting, that the scene is far more 

 firmly impressed upon my memory than many that 

 I have seen a hundred times more often. The lower 

 slopes were covered with lobelias* and senecios and 

 helichrysums, and the inevitable moss. Here was 

 found one of the most striking, and not the least 

 interesting, of the many new birds that were dis- 

 covered by the expedition. This was a sunbird 

 {Nectarinia dartniouthi) of a dark metallic green 

 colour shot with a wonderful iridescent purple. Two 

 feathers of its tail were prolonged several inches 

 beyond the others, and upon its breast, almost 

 hidden by the wings, were two tufts of short crimson 

 plumes. To see one of these little birds perched 

 upon a tall blue spike of lobelia, fluttering his wings 

 and flirting his long tail, was one of the prettiest 

 sights imaginable. Sunbirds and large swifts, which 

 live in the steep rocks like the Alpine swifts in 

 Europe, were almost the only living things to be 

 seen. 



* The lobelia that grows from 12,000 feet almost to the snow 

 level had been wrongly identified in former collections with a 

 species found on Kilimanjaro. Dr. A. B. Rendle finds that it 

 is a distinct species, and has named it Lobelia wollastoni. 



