234 
THE KILIMANJARO EXPEDITION. 
yellow-white, grew in clusters where the forest was 
less dense, and pretty star-like anemones, blush-colour 
with yellow centres, sprang up like pale stars amid 
the dusky herbage. Things that resembled chervil 
and hemlock grew in rank abundance, and the 
crimson gladioli gleamed out vividly on all sides. 
There were also pretty irises and ground orchids of a 
rich mauve-pink. Altogether, although the flora was 
different from that at lower levels., it lost nothing in 
brilliancy of colours. The men rapidly constructed 
wind shelters of branches, lit roaring fires, and wrapped 
themselves in their scanty garments to resist the in¬ 
creasing cold. The Caga soldiers killed two of their 
sheep recklessly, thinking nothing of economizing their 
food, and distributed some of the meat among my 
men, offering me a really choice leg of mutton. All 
through the night the tree-hyraxes kept us awake 
with their ringing plaintive cry. After a long dis¬ 
cussion the next morning, I decided to move our 
permanent camp higher up the mountain, so that I 
might be nearer the field of my researches, and also 
for the reason that the men of Mandara continually 
dreaded an attack from their enemies., and would not 
allow us to fire our guns at any bird or beast, fearing 
lest the shots might reveal our existence. On reaching 
a height of 9000 feet the continuous forest came to an 
end, and we emerged on tracts of tussocky grass, 
interspersed here and there in parklike fashion with 
clumps of trees. We were now on a kind of level 
table or shelf, which stretched away round the southern 
slope of the mountain, and from which the great 
central mass (the ridge culminating in the two peaks 
of Kibo and Kimawenzi) arose with a somewhat abrupt 
ascent. In the hollows of this further range there 
