342 Wande^dngs in Eastern Africa. 
by nature knows " eche ascentioun of the equi- 
noctial/' 
When morning dawned, the thermometer had de- 
scended to 49°, dew lying thickly on the glass. Every- 
thing I touched was very cold. My hands, after getting 
all ready for the start, were blue and quite benumbed ; 
I almost shivered. Certainly I had never felt such 
cold in Africa before. The men who lay all night by 
the side of blazing fires did not feel it as I did ; but when 
we left the camp, some of them took away firebrands 
with which to keep their hands warm on the way. 
We set out early, wishing to make as good a march 
as possible, though we did not expect to reach Jipe 
that day. The country was pathless, and the grass so 
thick and long, that travelling was very trying, and 
the men grievously complained. 
After climbing another low ridge the land lay 
before us in long and gentle undulations, just sufficient 
now to shut us in from the surrounding landscape, and 
now to lay open its wide expanse before us. At ten 
a.m. we passed through a district which in the rainy 
season must be a very pretty piece of country. But 
its luxuriant grasses were now a thick covering of 
straw, though its fine trees were still adorned with a 
dense and verdant foliage, and they gave a rich, park- 
like aspect to the place. Antelopes and giraffes were 
seen in the distance on either hand. Here I plucked 
a little of the pamba ya muitu (cotton of the woods), 
the capsule of which is a round sack of thin skin, as 
tough as tissue paper. The cotton resembles that of 
the bombax, being of a silky nature, but in fibre yields 
rather a short sample. I found this plant growing 
also on the top of the Kithima rocks. 
