WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE n 
cries of turacos, possibly a species slightly differing from that found in the 
warmer climate of the plains or hill-sides. Most of the other birds will be 
allied to South African, Abyssinian or even European species—large purple 
pigeons with yellow beaks or pretty doves with roseate tinge and white heads ; 
orioles of green and yellow and grey; chats, buntings, fly-catchers, plump 
speckled francolin and tiny harlequin-quails ; few, if any birds of prey, but 
many great-billed black and white ravens and an occasional black crow. The 
wild flowers remind one touchingly of home. There are violets, there is a rare 
primula, there are buttercups, forget-me-nots, St. John’s wort, anemones, vivid 
blue hound’s-tongue and heather. Unfamiliar, however, are the lovely ground 
orchids, the strange proteas and the “everlasting” flowers. Also there are strag¬ 
gling arborescent heaths, almost like small conifers in appearance, though other 
forms more closely resemble our own heather. Near the edges of the plateau 
ON THE PLATEAU 
amongst the rocks grows a big kind of tree-lily with a gouty, pachydermatous, 
branching stem and tufts of grass-like leaves. If it be, as I imagine, the early 
spring when you are ascending the mountain, these otherwise ugly shrubs will 
be covered with white lily-like blossoms. 
The air of these lofty plateaux is cool and bracing and the sunshine harmless 
in the day-time. When the weather is fine the sky is a lovely pale-blue. 
Daylight under these conditions is one long inexhaustible joy of living. 
Fatigue is not felt; the sun’s heat is pleasantly warm ; a moderate thirst can 
be delightfully quenched in the innumerable ice-cold brooks ; but when the 
sun is set—set amid indescribable splendour in what appears to be the middle 
of the sky, so high is the horizon—nature wears a different even an alarming 
aspect: unless you have a cheerful log-hut to enter or a well-pitched comfortable 
tent (with a roaring fire burning at a safe distance from the tent porch) 
you will feel singularly dismal. Perhaps a thunder-storm may have come 
on. Enormous masses of cloud may be bearing down on and enveloping 
you—thunder of the most deafening description breaks around you and 
