Chapter VIII. 
another of the blocks heaped at the foot of the cliff. The 
porters found an easier way a little further down through 
the senecios and helichrysums between the second and third 
lakelets. 
Thus skirting along the glacier they presently reached 
the top of the lofty buttress, which runs westward from 
Mt. Speke, dividing the two valleys which are to the west of 
the Stuhlmann and Cavalli Passes. A spur of rock rises from 
the very ridge, forming a belvedere 14,744 feet high, from 
which they were able to observe the way which lay before 
them. 
Unfortunately the weather was already changing, and 
detached drifts of mist, which had been gathering here and 
there, now began rapidly to collect and melt into one another. 
They saw quite clearly from this point a conical rocky peak 
rising from one of the western buttresses of Mt. Emin—a 
sort of “ little Matterhorn,” which may possibly have been one 
of the “ twin cones ” towards which Stairs was steering; on 
his expedition to the north-west of the chain. 
To reach the foot of Mt. Emin it was necessary to cross 
the head of the great valley which runs down to the west of 
the Cavalli Pass and cross another and smaller spur which 
runs into this valley from Mt. Speke. Hence they continued 
skirting the mountains at the foot of the Grant Glacier, which 
seems to have shrunk even more than the others. On reaching 
the top of this spur, they proceeded to descend, skirting the 
slope towards the Cavalli Pass, taking advantage of a provi¬ 
dential ledge which squeezed a narrow way between smooth 
steep slabs of rock which would otherwise have been impassable. 
This ledge was covered with a dense thicket of helichrysmn, 
through which the guides cut a path. The valley was crossed 
240 
