128 
THE KILIMANJARO EXPEDITION. 
simple shoulder of the down rising across our ravine. 
This is a plain grassy slope with white goats browsing 
on it, but in the immediate foreground it is dropping 
into the more misty depths of the widening gorge over 
whose purple abyss soar and wheel in high relief a few 
brown vultures. 
It was most delightful thus to look forth from my 
eyrie on the many lands spread before me as on a huge 
and living map, and also to feel that I was safe from 
all attack on the part of the lawless rovers of the 
plains. My gaze stretched away, even into parts of 
Africa that are unknown and unvisited of white men, 
and I could scan the natural features of these countries 
at a glance, and correct the disposition of their rivers 
and mountain ranges on the map. Sometimes, when 
the partial mists rose over the nearer hills and valleys, 
and the brow of my hill seemed to be an island floating 
in the air, the effect was a most pleasing and novel 
one. I, my men, my huts, and my domestic animals 
seemed to be sailing over Africa in a giant balloon. 
Below us, beyond the mists, were the sunlit plains, the 
lines of velvet forest bordering the winding streams, 
the stretches of open 
pasture-land like lakes 
of grass, green amid 
the darker forest and 
the purple hills. Then, 
at our feet, rolling 
clouds of grey vapour, 
and, standing out in 
strong relief against 
this vacuous back¬ 
ground, the soaring 
kites who wheeled and poised with outspread pinions 
