ASCENT OF KENIA 



375 



first time to 0° Centigrade, a moderately clear morning broke, 

 and I started once more with Maktubu, Mahommed, and ten 

 men. As I had no intention of spending the night higher 

 np, we did not have to take tents, covers, &c. We were off 

 at six minutes past four, and after an hour's stiff march halted 

 to collect firewood, for which the dry stems of the Senecio 

 Johnstonii, still plentiful here, though of rare and isolated oc- 

 currence higher up, served admirably. We then pushed steadily 

 on up a very steep ridge clothed with moss a foot deep, having 

 all the time on the left the bed of a somewhat important stream 

 fed by countless little rills trickling between the ferns and 

 under the moss and giving the slopes of the mountain quite a 

 swampy character. At a height of 13,100 feet we saw the 

 last examples of animal life of any size : a humming-bird, a 

 pretty thrush-like bird, and a light-brown hairy tailless 

 marmot. We came here, too, upon newly fallen snow which, 

 as it thawed, still further increased the difficulties of climbing. 



'At ten o'clock we had reached an altitude of 13,600 feet. 

 My barefooted companions were suffering terribly from cold, 

 although the thermometer marked + 7° Centigrade, so I decided 

 to climb the rest of the way alone. After a good meal I left 

 all the men but Mahommed Seiff, who would not be left behind, 

 round their fires, and started at noon, reaching at half-past two 

 the top of the ridge we had all along been climbing. For the 

 last hour we had been passing over hardened ice, covered with 

 a layer of fresh snow a foot deep. Different varieties of 

 Senecio and luxuriant patches of moss occurred as far up as 

 the snow line, which is at a height of about 14,750 feet. The 

 ridge which at first had led direct for the summit had, during 

 the last hour's march, turned off towards the south-east, and it 

 now became clear that we ought really to have chosen the 

 ridge on the right bank of the stream, as that leads straight 

 up to the top. From where I stood, however, I could tell that 



