196 TAYETA AND MOUNTS KILIMANJARO AND MERU 



mind to stop where I was and await his return. When he was 

 gone I greedily swallowed a number of the hard lumps of the 

 gritty ice, ascertained with the aid of my aneroid that I was at 

 a height of 16,240 feet, and then, fully satisfied with all I had 

 achieved, I yielded to my irresistible desire for sleep. 



I was awoke from a short deep slumber by a strong wind 

 and the dazzling rays of the mid-day sun. The sky itself was 

 still perfectly clear, but clouds were gathering below me, and 

 Kibo was already draped in fog. Count Teleki was not back 

 nor could I see him with the naked eye, so I tried to amuse 

 myself in my immediate surroundings. Plants were of course 

 very scarce, and I was the more surprised to see a solitary 

 specimen of one of the Compositas ^ which had just put forth a 

 yellow flower, and the lonely spider already mentioned still 

 represented the entire animal kingdom. Presently I heard the 

 click of Count Teleki's Alpine stock, but I could not see him, 

 sharp as are my eyes, till some time after. It was just ten 

 minutes to one when he rejoined me. 



The Count had climbed on without the slightest difiiculty 

 for an hour, when he beo-an to feel a certain straining of the 

 membrane of the tympanum of the ear, accompanied by a rush- 

 ing noise in his head, but he pressed on all the same. As he 

 was cutting across a declivity filled with ashes to reach the 

 snow, which here completely covered the slope of the peak, he 

 noticed that his lips were beginning to bleed freely ; he also 

 felt dreadfully sleepy, but although he almost caught himself 

 napping he would not give in but went on till he reached the 

 snow, where sleep so nearly overcame him that, knowing it 

 would be dangerous to yield to it, he decided to return. His 

 aneroid had registered 411 "3 millimetres, so he had reached 

 a height of 17,387 feet. 



After a short rest we hurried back to our tents, the position 



^ Erigeron Teleki ScJnueinfurth, new species. 



