190 TAVETA AND MOUNTS KILIMANJARO AND MERU 



flower. The largest reached a height of about sixteen and a 

 half feet, and the beautiful orange-coloured flowers were from 

 three and a quarter to four feet long. The round stem, which 

 is of a medium thickness of from five to six inches, is covered 

 with the scars of the old leaves, forming a kind of rough rind, 

 and though these stems are hollow and apparently slender, I 

 tried in vain to pick a piece. The main stem forks three times, 

 but there are secondary simple stems which also bear flowers. 

 We saw hardly any mountain fauna, although the temperature 

 at mid-day, in spite of the thick fog, was +10 o, 5 Centigrade. 

 Two crows with white spots on their necks, which flew rapidly 

 past, and one solitary singing bird were all the feathered fowl 

 we caught sight of. Our collections here consisted only of one 

 grey mouse, one little chameleon, three small lizards, two short- 

 winged brightly-coloured grasshoppers, one greyish-yellow 

 Phasmodea, not quite two inches long, several little blue-caps, 

 snd a beautiful large nocturnal peacock's-eye butterfly. 



In the afternoon Count Teleki went off to take our bearings, 

 but the increasing density of the fog soon compelled him to 

 return. A night with the temperature at +47° Centigrade 

 was succeeded by a dreary day of thick fog and persistent 

 fine but soaking rain, preventing us from doing anything, so 

 that we remained from morning till night by our huge fire. 

 The seven goats we had brought with us suffered much from 

 the cold, and got so near the fire that some of them burnt their 

 hoofs. They were gentle, affectionate animals, used to living 

 with the natives in their huts, and they liked to get as close to 

 us as they could, and to spend the night in our tent. 



June 18 passed in much the same way ; everything was 

 ready for the ascent of the mountain, and we had simply to 

 wait with folded arms for the next clear morning. 



The coolness of the following night convinced us, even with 

 closed tents, that the next day would be fine, and with the first 



