186 T A VET A AND MOUNTS KILIMANJARO AND MERIT 



brought us to the boundary of the upper mountain district, 

 which could not be at a much higher altitude than the camp we 

 had left but ten minutes before, viz., about 5,460 feet. The 

 plantations ceased here, but a good and apparently much used 

 path led further up. Several kinds of sage, some more than 

 9 feet high, and a sort of bramble with a red fruit about the 

 size of a walnut, ferns and heaths were plentiful, the last-named 

 preponderating as we got higher up. At a height of 6,300 

 feet, however, all these were merged in the primaeval forest, in 

 which old patriarchs with knotted stunted forms , stood closely 

 together, many of them worsted in the perpetual struggle with 

 the encroachments of the parasitical growths of almost fabulous 

 strength and size, which enfolded trunks and branches alike 

 in their fatal embrace, crippling the giants themselves and 

 squeezing to death the mosses, lichens, and ferns which had 

 clothed their nakedness. Everything living seemed doomed 

 to fall a prey to them, but they in their turn bore their own 

 heavy burden of parasites : creepers, from a yard to two 

 yards long, hanging down in garlands and festoons, or forming 

 one thick veil shrouding whole clumps of trees. Wherever a 

 little space had been left amongst the many fallen and decay- 

 ing trunks, the ground was covered with a luxuriant vegetation, 

 including many varieties of herbaceous plants with bright- 

 coloured flowers, orchids, and the modest violet peeping out 

 amongst them, whilst more numerous than all were different 

 lycopods and sword-shaped ferns. 



In this old-world forest a gloomy greenish twilight pre- 

 vails even at mid-day, and the stillness is unbroken by the 

 cry of bird or beast, or even the hum of insect. Xo man 

 could possibly make his way through the dreary solitudes, and 

 we ourselves painfully followed the track broken open and 

 trodden down by elephants. After about an hour's such 

 marching we came to a grassy clearing bright with many 



