374 



OUR STAY AT NDORO 



wliicli bore flowers not unlike those of tlie European sage, ferns, 

 and other flowerless plants covered the swampy slopes of the 

 mountam. It rained constantly on this march ; the tem- 

 perature was + 8° Centigrade, and the condition of our men, 

 who were grey and shivering with the cold, led me to decide 

 on halting before noon. We were now at a height of 11,600 

 feet, and as I meant to make the rest of the ascent alone, I let 

 the men build good huts here. There was plenty of wood, 

 moss, &c., but everything reeked with damp, and it was a long- 

 time before we could light our first fire. 



' It cleared a little in the afternoon, and I was able to take 

 a few observations to help me in the further climb. I found 

 that the course we had taken had been by no means badly 

 chosen, as we had reached the base of the loftiest peak of 

 the mountain. Further up I came to many perpendicular 

 precipices, but I always found room to climb between them. 

 The slopes were, in many places, dotted with remarkable 

 isolated colamn-like pieces of rocks from 60 to 160 feet high. 

 From nearly every cleft of the mountain flowed a little brook 

 on the swampy banks of which grew various plants, chiefly 

 Lobeliaceas, with others resembling the Senecio Johnstonii, 

 mosses and ferns. The occurrence of numbers of a kind of 

 Nectarinia,^ ten or twelve appearing at once, was remarkable at 

 this height. Mahommed brought me a nest with a young one 

 in it. I put it on the grass in front of the tent in the hope of 

 enticing the parents to it, and was rewarded by the appearance 

 of the male in all the beauty of his bridal plumage. 



' On the 21st I tried to go further up the mountain with a 

 few men, but fog and rain soon compelled me to return. 



' After a night during which the thermometer fell for the 



' Dr. L. L. E.. von Libeman, curator of the zoological department of the 

 Natural History Miiseum in Vienna, named these birds Nectannia Deckeni, after 

 Baron von der Decken. 



