MY FIRST SETTLEMENT ON NILIMA-NJAR0. 137 
with the pale pink sunshine. Thus it was that within 
a few days of my arrival I had my first good stare 
at, and began my first detailed sketch of Kilima-njaro’s 
highest peak, which the coast people call “ the moun¬ 
tain of the Snow Fiend,” and the Masai more re¬ 
verently term “ the Home of God.” I hurried a short 
distance from my camp to the edge of the ravine, 
whence there was little to obstruct the view, and 
there, squatted amid the crushed bracken fronds at 
the commencement of the precipitous descent, I looked 
across first to the opposite hill, crested with feathery 
trees, acacias, sycamores, and palms, and then to 
the swelling forest-clad heights beyond, gloomy and 
sombre in the shade, as yet untouched by the sloping 
sunshine. Above 
these a vast white 
sheet of fleecy cloud, 
uniform and flat, 
and crowning all, as 
if cut off from the 
lower earth, and 
floating majestically 
in the pale blue 
heaven, the snow- 
covered dome, with 
its blemishes of 
shadow and blaze of 
preponderating light 
like that of the disc 
of the moon. 
The jealous 
clouds, however, 
granted me but a 
poor half-hour in which to sketch the features of their 
Fig. 34.”A Native Dam. 
