Chapter VI. 
rock comes to the surface. The eastern and western ridges 
seemed to offer easy routes to the summit. 
«/ 
They remained less than half an hour on the peak. There 
was no hope of the mists disappearing that day, and after 
finishing the barometric and thermometric observations, and 
enjoying the first enthusiasm of victory, they began to feel the 
penetrating cold of the wind. There was an impressive sense of 
solitude in perching upon this narrow snowy ridge, with the 
whole earth cut off from them by the mist. Glaciers, precipices 
and peaks, valleys and plains, lakes and forests, were all veiled 
by the dense layer of fog, interposed like a barrier between the 
burning regions of Equatorial Africa and the eternal Alpine 
snows. 
They re-descended the ice wall, resumed their loads, and 
returned to Alexandra Peak. By 2.20 p.m. they returned to 
their tent. A few hours later they were all four stricken 
with snow-blindness. They had been exposed during the whole 
day to the dazzling whiteness of the fog, and unable to make 
use of their black spectacles, with which it was impossible to 
see anything at all. They spent the night and the following day 
in the tent, bathing their swollen and weeping eyes with tea. 
On the following day, 20th of June, they were all much 
better, so early in the morning they started from the tent in very 
fine weather, and returned to Alexandra Peak by the same path 
which they had taken two days before. The Duke arrived on 
the top about 7.30 a.m., and worked for a long time at measuring 
the angles of the peaks and the salient points of the chain. He 
set out again at 9.0 a.m. Drifts of fog were now beginning to 
invade the scene. They returned to the high glacier-plain 
and set forth for the two fine rock and ice peaks which stood 
at its southern extremity. 
1S6 
