Chapter III: First Ascent of Pico Grande

Before dawn on the next day, which was ‘Noche Buena,’ we were up and anxious to be doing; we had agreed to visit the cone, which had the temporary honour of being held the highest of Camaroons. Setting out at 6 A.M., after a scanty breakfast—what execrable stuff that essence of coffee is!—we retraced our steps through the wooded gorge, and passed out of the sweet forest into the open, where grass occupied the surface between bits of degraded lava. The ascent began eastward, up a black slope garnished with thin tussocks and rat-holes; here we first saw the beautifully green leaves of the Hypericum, whose colour would be a fortune to a dyer, and its rich blossoms, which at a distance resemble yellow dog-roses.[67] The appearance of the hills and craters all changed so much that M. Mann, who already showed signs of indisposition, asked his Kruboys ‘where dem glass ting (_i.e._ the thermometers) lib?’ and a ‘no sabby’ was the only reply. We saw kites, a few violets, and large footprints, apparently of kudu, dating from the last rains: during the ‘dries’ the beasts are driven by thirst into the lower forests. But one deer was seen in this region; huntsmen are common; there are remains of huts near our camp, and about three quarters of a mile to the north- west are caverns where freshly plucked leaves show the presence of man. We crossed sundry Devil’s Backbones, and a path spanning the mountains from north-east to west. From the depth to which the path was worn, it was probably a regular line of communication for the people.

At 8 A.M. we reached the foot of a tall sugarloaf, conspicuous in this direction—not from the north—by the symmetry of its conformation, perfect amongst the tossed and truncated forms around. After halting for a few minutes in a tree-grown cavity at the base, where water sinks, and where we found a souvenir in the ‘forget-me-not’—the myosotis, which the French prettily call _plus je te vois, plus je t’aime_,—and a fine leucothoë, we began the ascent with long elbows to the north-east and the north-west. On the occidental slope, defended from the wind, were a few wilted inclined trees, so aligned that they presented a sharp edge to the gales. The surface was the usual dark vegetable mould, which varies from a few inches to a foot in thickness, bearing grass already withered to a reddish yellow. Two spots showed curious charrings, apparently natural, and overgrown with slippery lichens, amongst which were found some deserted birds’ nests. The whole aspect was rather that of St. Isabel Peak on Fernando Po than anything on the Camaroons.

M. Mann, despite his sufferings, preceded us. Mr. Saker, the Judge, and I formed line and ascended together. Thick mists began to veil the mighty form of Little Camaroons. We stood now about mid-way between it and the summit,[68] and we hurried on, breathing quickly in the morning air, lest even at this early hour the Mongo might begin to ‘smoke his pipe.’ The furious north-easter almost took away our breath, and gave our hands a wintry look. After an hour, frequent halts included, we passed rapidly along a narrow chine winding with gentle ascent over ground flattening out to the summit; looked northwards, and stood enchanted with the grandeur and the novelty of the view.

A wondrous confusion reigned around; a volcanic perspective of _Pays brûlé_ which forced back thought through myriads of years, to the time when all was a desolating flood and a sheet of ‘whirling, roaring, bursting, blasting, thundering flames.’ One glance at the immediate van- ground, a long grassy shelf, ribbed with black, and further still where an immense circle of volumed white cloud, iridized by the sun, formed a setting of opal for the tumbled mass of ‘parasitic’ cones; and on the left hand, vast spillings of black lava, a burned ridge, streaked and bordered by the liveliest green. Then every eye turned northwards, where clear and distinct,—too near Heaven it appeared for any fleck of mist,—calm in the hurlyburly around, and dwarfing with its giant proportions all the subject mountains, rose in dark blue profile the grand Presence of the Peak.

When our nerves had recovered their tranquil tone, we proceeded to use glasses. Even the naked eye could see that the vertex of the cone had, like Etna, two distinct summits, which at this distance presented a considerable angle. That to the right was named by acclamation Victoria; that to the left, Albert Mountain. At the time we were ignorant of the melancholy event which but two days before had plunged a whole nation into mourning. The deep metallic blue that invested Pico Grande, compared with the green-brown hue of the nearer mountain parallels, suggested the idea that a chasm separated fore from background. Happily for us, it was not so.

Page 136.]

After the first naming we proceeded to distinguish the others by Christian appellations; even strict geographers cannot blame the act in a place which has absolutely no terminology; besides which, by precising our several points, the bearings and altitudes may be subsequently corrected, and future travellers will more easily trace out our route. The cone upon which we were standing—it proved subsequently most useful as a landmark—was named by Mr. Saker, after his wife, ‘Mount Helen.’ I contented myself with a glorious mass, looming high in the limpid air to the N.N.W. (magnetic), and with similar marital dutifulness called it Mount Isabel.[69] The ceremony was concluded with a seemly libation; we could not dine here as Britons ought, but we compounded with the assistance of the B. P. apparatus a bowl of punch. M. Casella’s policeman’s lantern and new zeometer proved useful in the strong wind, when the old shaving-pot occupied a long time in collecting wood and charring it, to get rid of the smoke.[70] The extreme difference between the two results, after five readings, was only 0·6, and the mean 0·5. The summit of Mount Helen was found to be 9223 to 9383 feet, and the base of the cone was 7932 feet above sea-level.

Thus exhilarated by our morning’s work we prepared at 10 A.M. to descend the cone, which we effected after the fashion of visitors to Vesuvius,—not on our feet. An observation from Mount Helen had given the bearing of Earthwork Crater, near our camp, W.S.W.; we resolved to follow the chord instead of the arc which we had taken during the ascent. At the foot of Mount Helen we fell into a weathered lava-bed, which we named No. 2. The breadth varies from 100 yards to a mile. It issues from a neighbouring crater in a S.E. direction, bending to the S., where, like No. 1, it terminates abruptly; and it is manifestly a much newer formation than the field up which we had travelled in the earlier morning. It is observable that, though the craters open in all directions, the course of the lava-rivers is invariably southerly. I leave the consideration to more expert volcanists than myself; but may not the violent N. and N.E. gales—the constant land-breeze from the cold peaks to the warm sea—that twists the trees upon these mountains, have determined the direction of their liquid outflow?

Our road lay along a crater breached on the S.E. side, to which we gave the name of our friend Judge Calvo; it lay nearly due north of Earthwork Crater, and was another landmark. As we flattered ourselves that breakfast was near, an ocean of white mist-cloud, dense but not dark, overwhelmed us, and we wandered from east to west till after a long delay we hit upon a hunter’s trail. This led us over deep black gashes in the subsoil lava, and along the steep flank of Earthwork Crater into camp. We arrived at 11·45 A.M., after a walk of nearly six hours.

Christmas-day was somewhat sad to those who could not prevent

‘The busy goste, aye flick’ring to and fro,’

winging her way to far-off regions which the heavy clay cannot reach. In such wild scenes, with wilder work before them, men are too apt to think regretfully of merry gatherings round the Yule log, the _leche de almandras_, and the Christmas-tree, forgetting the inevitable worries of ‘home,’ and the pains and penalties of civilization, so terrible to endure after the life of liberty in the desert; besides, if we lose the revelry at night, do we not also escape the headache next morning?

By way of occupation on Christmas-day, in the morning I accompanied Mr. Saker to the summit of Earthwork Crater. It lies about thirteen miles[71] from Victoria, and five from the summit of the Peak. It is here a typical formation, so it may be described at some length. From a distance it resembles nothing so much as half an egg-shell with a broken top; we named it from the regularity of its smooth grassy slopes, already reddened by the change of season. No glacis, no work of ‘navvies,’ could appear more artificial. It is impossible not to see in this shape the hand of Neptune; and we conjectured that from Mount Helen to the shore all must have been formed in quick rise from a quiet sea—submarine opposed to the subaërial above. This, however, must be settled by the presence or absence of fossils, such as those which have been discovered on Monte Somma. The southern base is clothed with the forest of tall trees in which we have pitched our camp. Measured from the bottom of the slope, the total height and length are 640 feet, including 340 feet for the upper or grassy portion. The aneroid showed 162 feet of direct height.[72] The circumference of the upper rim is 522 feet, and the periphery of the bowl is complete except at the W.S.W., where, broken by a lava-stream trending southwards, it assumes from above the shape of a horseshoe. The internal depth is one hundred perpendicular feet; it has long burned out, and during the rains water sinks in its cup, attracting small birds. Three distinct ridges of lava may be traced in the inner wall. The highest part of the basin-rim is the N.W., where another liquid stream from the N.E., butting up to the crater wall, has sliced away the slope into a perpendicular cliff, and has circled round a portion of the S.W. base. As in many similar formations, the gradual slipping of the side soil under the influence of sun and rain has formed a small clean flat margin at the base, like a shallow saucer supporting an inverted cup.[73] The Phlegethon once issuing from Earthwork Crater is nearly embedded in earth, and partly overgrown with shrubs; there are little pitholes and rocks with diminutive ledges, which at times must supply the beasts of the wild with drink.

Nothing could be more beautiful than the slanting rays of the sun, sharply bisecting the inner crater with yellow light, that refused to blend with the purple shades below. We stood upon the topmost crest and waved our caps, to see if the action would be reflected as in the Hartz Mountains—without result as at Tenerife. The summit fully explained the ant-hill-like appearance which the highlands wear when viewed from Fernando Po and Ambas Bay. Besides the eruptive ‘lapilli’ craters, hidden to the eastward by mist and lava-bed, we counted eleven distinct forms in the north, to the south nine, and eleven to the south-west—a total of thirty-one, within a radius of perhaps two miles, literally undermining the whole land. They are of two distinct formations. Those under 6000 to 7000 feet are montecules, covered with dense forest, but still betraying their origin by their conformation: those above that altitude are smooth, grassy, regular, and uniform. From this point we could distinctly see the half-way platform of Little Camaroons.

After breakfast Mr. Saker left us for Camaroons River, promising to return early the next month. We made up for him a party of six armed men, who were directed to bring stores from our depôt at Victoria. The child ‘Poor Fellow’ also accompanied him. Five days afterwards we heard with pleasure that this first descent, through a region which might be called hostile, had been effected without accident, except to boots. Mr. Saker descended, at some pain to his crural muscles, Lava Bed No. 1 in two hours twenty minutes, not including halts, and reached Victoria on the next day. It was not the fault of his escort, however, that the return did not end tragically. Krumen have no relish for the ‘bitter sweets of war.’ Passing the outlying houses of Mapanya at early dawn, the party was heard by an old man, who challenged them, and, receiving no answer, shouted for help. Off at the sound like startled deer went my acting head-man, a great burly fellow called Tom Bushman, followed by Messrs. Seabreeze, Nyanyi, and others—they were subsequently punished by half rations—nor did they stop till they had reached the Mission Station, and had reported that, after a deadly fight, the white man had been slain, and the rest of his escort made prisoners. Mrs. Saker, knowing the men, was incredulous. Mr. Johnson at once sent a message to King William of Bimbia, after which he and Mr. Pinnock started up the hill. After a ten minutes’ walk they met Mr. Saker coming towards them. He had suffered no damage beyond losing his way for a couple of miles, and paying a head of tobacco for guidance to a Bushman. The letter containing these details further informed us that our late companion had found a direct path from Mapanya to Bosumbo, and that the down-journey from our camp to Victoria could be made in twelve hours, allowing two hours for the Lava Bed No. 1.

We did our best to honour Christmas Day. Kind Mrs. Saker had given us a plum-pudding, which fared badly in the encounter, and we had beef, but a trifle salt. A forest of Yule logs lay around us—I wished it had been my property within easy carriage of Paris—and a giant fire lighted up the camp. We spent a merry evening, telling old tales around our hearth, and, cognac being deficient, we roughed it on a bowl of anizado. During my wanderings I had found an as yet undetermined species of wild mint, whose flavour when bruised is tolerable,[74] and we pronounced the julep to be far from unpalatable. At this venerable season, when good works as well as good living are expected from us, I contribute my quotum by offering to my English fellow-countrymen the following recipe for a mint beverage à la Virginie:—

_Recipe._

Take of mint quant. suff.; soak in brandy or other spirit for fifteen minutes; sweeten according to taste. Cool the minted liquor with smashed ice. Shake till the mixture is homogeneous. Add a sprig for ‘the garden,’—and imbibe.

Before undertaking other expeditions we resolved to re-form the camp, and thus employed the whole 26th of December. The Krumen were banished to a certain distance, where their brawling voices and horseplay could not offend, and were ordered to bring in daily a certain amount of firewood, under penalty of ‘no chop.’ The Judge and I sallied out pick and axe in hand. We improved our Acis, Mann’s Spring, by clearing away the turf, deepening the basin, and embanking the precious lymph: after half an hour the Naiad of the rill would not have known her own home. Then the encampment was provided with a variety of comforts. Herbaceous stalks and young branches compacted with ‘tie-tie,’ or the tender withies of the clematis and various barks—rope is never wanted in an African forest—formed chairs and fauteuils, couches, bedsteads, tables, and benches, a platform for drying botanical specimens, a canopy to shelter us from the sun, sleeping boothies, and a store hut. All was rural in the extreme, but the general appearance was decidedly cosy. We looked like anything but ‘castaways on a lee-shore.’ That our _coin du feu_ might be the more comfortable at night, the Judge constructed a Turkish lantern, a cylinder of red cloth round a framework of splinters, and the effect was a pleasant glowing light. We cut away the boughs which might be brought down upon our heads by violent winds, the wild squalls, and fierce puffs, here as common as on the Peak of Tenerife, and had no reason afterwards to regret this precaution. A Pelourinho, or whipping-post, was erected _in terrorem_. Finally, we cleared decent entrances, and we laid down tasks for lazy men to be done each day.

M. Mann was still suffering; he feared an attack of dysentery, ever risky at these altitudes. The internal cold had disappeared before the usual adhibitions—a little cognac internally, and externally plenty of flannel. He was not, however, well enough to walk: the Judge and I therefore resolved to make a reconnaissance of Pico Grande, and to place a store of water-breakers on the way in readiness for a general expedition to the summit.

After a fine night, when grave-like silence was interrupted only by the wind thundering at times over our heads, and bringing down dry twigs upon our dormitories, causing the trees to creek and groan—a sad sound in the forest during storms—we arose at 5·30 A.M. on Friday, the 27th December, and prepared for the undertaking. The party consisted of Judge Calvo and myself: three Krumen—Messrs. Two-Glass, Kharabu, and Jack Brass—carried water-breakers and provaunt; whilst ‘King Eyo,’ who claimed all the right royal to do wrong, or to do nothing, brought up the rear. The dawn was cloudless, windless, and clear, as the last night’s Venus—we used to watch her as one would a barometer—had promised; the morning haze was cool and pleasant; and we enjoyed the sun as we wound along the clover-grown sides of Earthwork and Calvo Craters, and up the rugged Lava Bed No. 2. The distance was about a mile and a quarter, yet it was two hours before we threw ourselves down to rest under the trees at the sheltered western foot of Mount Helen—we found it necessary to treat the Krumen as the Chinamen do their ducks—beat the last that enters the boat-house—and at 8·45 A.M. the thermometer in the grass at the halting-place showed 57° Fah.

Resuming our way after fifteen minutes’ stretch, we entered upon the grassy and rocky mountain-slope separating us from Mount Isabel. Having crossed by a natural bridge a small deep and narrow crevasse, whose sides were overgrown with vegetation, we turned northwards, wound over three distinct folds of hill, where a few dry herbaceous plants lingered, and where the bright hypericum already showed a stunted growth. Sign of deer was numerous: not a quadruped, however, large or small, met our eyes. We thought that we had detected a village at a distance, but it proved a heap of rocks. Traces of natives, however, showed here and there in a Robinson Crusoe-like footstep and in sundry fireplaces. Leaving on the right a jagged broken cone, crowning an earthwork-like eminence which I called Mount Selim, and on the left four montecules of the usual broken-egg shape, we ascended a steep outlying cone. At the summit, about half-way up Mount Isabel, we found a sheltered terrepleine, which we judged fitted for a water depôt, and we sat down to breakfast and to a draught of the carminative anizado. The distance was about a mile and a half, and the hour 10 A.M.

From the apex of the sub-range, looking back, we could have enjoyed a grand panorama of craters, sweeping in vast semicircle. Northwards, however was a spectacle that absorbed all our attention. Straight before us rose in ineffable majesty those glorious peaks, tangible, as it were, in the morning æther, high towering over all the subject land and dwarfing the craters and cones below. No chasm separated us from them. Beyond the base of Mount Isabel the ground swelled gently upwards to the feet of the King of all the Cones. I marked at once our path,—a broad meandering lava-bed, which had been confined to certain limits by dwarf spiracles dotted on both sides. The colour of Pico Grande’s radial lines was peculiar. A faint, dull green seemed to streak the coal-coloured eastern slopes, which were far less abrupt than the western; a long perpendicular sweep of blue parted most sensibly Victoria from Albert Mountain; and whilst the latter showed a distinct but small crater, the former was beautified with descending stripes of red and yellow—remnants of once-glowing heat—falling from a cliff or scaur a few yards below its apex, and the foreground wore its usual coating of red-yellow grasses. Nothing more vivid and pure than the lights, nothing darker and more transparent than the shadows.

I seized the Judge’s arm, and pointed to the colossus, and swore that we would play Jack the Giant-Killer that day. He meekly shook his head, opined that we would do our best, and referred me to my breakfast, which stuck in my throat.

Our Kruboys had shown even more than usual laziness, and King Eyo, who carried only a gun, usually loitered half a mile behind. The party was weeded by leaving the latter and Two-Glass, a noted shirker, to supervise the remainder of our day’s provision. The breakers intended for the future expedition were deposited in a safe place, and at 10·30 A.M. we set out with uncommon elation of spirits, ‘Excelsior!’ being now the word. Mountain-climbing was now over, and with it the exhilaration which the succession of distant obstacles to be overcome excites; but was not Pico Grande before us?

The path ran along the steep side of a kind of gate, formed by two cones with a little hollow between, and we were forced to tread on the edges of our feet. After a quarter of an hour we had passed the right-hand staple, and descended by a gentle slope, not destitute of pit-holes, into a shallow gorge that screened us from the strong north-easter. Hence we debouched upon the bed of lava which we had sighted from Mount Isabel, and named it No. 3. From this position we could better distinguish its source,—a crater on the left or westward of the great cone. It flows from north-east to south-west, bending to due south. Striking the end of the stream, which here has been suddenly arrested by a rise of ground, we followed the smoothly bevelled rim of a hill—an edging like the ‘ice-foot’ of the Polar regions—on the proper right, and then struck across the bed towards another buttress on the left of the old _coulée_. We afterwards regretted having preferred this course, thinking that we might have saved ourselves distance and toil by taking the other bank. Subsequent experience, however, proved the contrary. The passage occupied half an hour. We spent the first twenty minutes walking 800 feet over an erupted matter overgrown with dry green moss, and crumbling like pumice[75] beneath the tread. The last 400 feet lay over a ridgy bed of ruddy black clinker, hairy with burnt cryptogams; its detached stones, without intermediate débris, sharp-angled and sun- polished, made progress slow and painful. The contrast of this hard, dark, unweatherworn vein with the spongy green coating was curious; and I noticed in the different gashes, sections, and chasms formed by unequal cooling and floods, that the former everywhere underlies the latter after a depth of three or four feet. Judging from the position, both have been produced by the same outflow, which, however, could not have been the work of a very remote epoch.

At 11·30 A.M., after walking about a mile and three-quarters, we reached the cone on the proper left of the stream, wound along its edge, which was clean cut as if smoothed by art, and encumbered by strong, thick tussocks, which it would be a misnomer to call grass. The Great Peak was sensibly neared,—a circumstance which not a little increased our _élan_. After a ten minutes’ walk we found ourselves again condemned to cross, at right angles too, the frontal ridges of the same lava-bed to the north-east, where, being higher up, it was more broken but narrower. The features were the same,—old and green, new and black.

This passage led us to what appeared two grassy cones outlying the base of the Pico Grande. In a little hollow at the foot of the nearest we found a clump of shrubby trees, which was marked out as the resting- place of the future expedition. They rose in front of us with a central depression, and, not knowing that they were separated from the Peak with which they seemed to be connected, we judged it advisable to ascend the hollow between them. The incline was unusually steep, and the surface disconnected tussocks of the _Deschampia cæspitosa_, a graminea, which forms masses of three feet diameter and two feet high, and which sinks a cubit beneath the tread; its hard blades sound in the wind like the flow of water, and its stiff points pierce the clothes like thorns. In little patches there were finely-ground coal-black scoriæ, scorching in the sunbeams, and raising the heat to Black Hole temperature. The ground sounded hollow under the tread, but I listened vainly for ‘Bramidos.’ Having reached the summit, we found that the supposed two cones were but the double head concealing the rim of a beautifully formed crater, an inverted cone, circular, and with narrow edge-like lip, about 300 feet in circumference. The regular internal slope shelving down from the aperture was clothed like the external, with grass, to the very floor, which has a jetty pavement of fragmentary lava. I called it Mount Milnes, after a very good friend.

After that waste of labour in the merciless rays of the flaming sun—we could easily have rounded this abutment of the Peak—we allowed ourselves a quarter of an hour’s rest, and abandoned ourselves to the charm of the situation. We were the first Europeans certainly, perhaps the first men, who have ever stood within gunshot of that tall solitary pile. We made eternal silence vocal with a cheer,—there was no one to deride our demonstrativeness.

A nearer scrutiny explained some points which we had misunderstood from afar. The main Peak was entirely isolated, with a long sloping chine on our right (eastward), and a more abrupt descent in front and on the left. The faint green hue of the former was produced by a scanty crusting of lichen. The long sweep of blue was a slide—a herbless rift—of fine black comminuted cinder; and the red and yellow scaurs were fire-tinged scoriæ. The long eastern shoulder would have been the easiest, the difficult loose slide of lava-dust the shortest. I preferred a _mezzo termine_, and chose a ridgelet running up Victoria Mountain.

At 1 P.M. we addressed ourselves to the task of walking round the crater of Mount Milnes. Here, however, the Judge stopped; having slightly sprained his right ankle, he decided, looking at the task before him, that it was beyond his powers; and advised me to reserve it for another day. Subsequences almost made me regret that I had not followed his counsel. But on second thoughts—No! To be first in such matters is everything; to be second, nothing. Besides, the announcement made to us at Mapanya had rendered the affair a kind of steeple-chase; there was perhaps a little ‘_malice_’ in my wish to win.

Descending the tufted cone, between which and the great Peak there was no débris, I began to breast the ascent. Jack Brass, who carried my warm clothing, had sat down in some secluded spot where he was doubtless dozing in the warm midday sun, and Kharabu only remained to accompany me. The good Judge lent me his flask of spirits and water: having detected my companion neatly ‘tiefing’ the contents, I took the bottle under my especial charge; and twice when Kharabu’s glazed eyes and cracked lips showed symptoms of defaillance, it served to keep him alive. These Krumen are not hill-men. Their iron bones and leathery muscles are not to be tired with rowing and paddling, but on the mountain they soon weary.

I first made a long elbow towards an isolated clump of basaltic _arêtes_ springing from the lava and pumice slope on the left. We will call them ‘Half-way Rocks.’ The walking was easy enough, and the angle gentle; but no lava-stream here existing, and the small cinders slipping down with the foot, it was somewhat fatiguing. From these little ‘Grands Mulets’ I turned to the right, and, keeping the topmost red and yellow scaur in sight, followed the ragged edge of a small ridge, whose mossy lava-lumps afforded hold to the tread. The only remarkable feature of the ascent was a sprinkling of coarse quartzose stone, which we had not seen elsewhere. At times the all-fours position became preferable to the usual and more dignified; but in presence of such a sun as then glowed upon us, with far fiercer radiation than below, I had no shame in prostrating myself.[76] As we neared the summit the steepness and looseness of the material was increasing; Kharabu sank down nearly fainting from the sun’s arrowy beams, and was allowed to remain behind. At 1·30 I stood upon the summit of the Peak, where new and unexpected objects met my sight.

Victoria Mountain now proved to be the shell of a huge ‘double crater,’ opening to the south-eastward, where a tremendous torrent of fire had broken down the weaker wall. The whole interior and its accessible breach now lay before me, plunging sheer in vertical cliff. The depth of the bowl may be 250 feet; the total diameter of the two, which are separated by a rough partition of lava, 1000 feet. The interior slope is a highly irregular cliff, which drops horizontally, streaked and ribboned with igneous matter, red and yellow, whose bands of colour indicate horizontal stratification, and comminuted scoriæ standing at an angle of 45°. Not a blade of grass, not a thread of moss breaks the gloom of the Plutonic pit, which is as black as Erebus, except where the fire has painted it red and yellow. To the north-west appeared a ridge overtopping the rest of the two-headed cone which we had called Albert Mountain, and a bluff wall or dyke, which I had not time to visit.

To record my claim I heaped up a small cairn of stones, and in it placed a fragment from the facetious pages of Mr. Punch, perhaps the greatest traveller on record, and certainly one of the traveller’s best friends. When Kharabu rejoined me with the B. P. apparatus, an attempt was made to boil. But Jack Brass had prudently kept with him the blanket intended to shelter the match; the furious nor’-easter[77]—it left its mark upon me for a fortnight afterwards—charging and eddying round the cone at the rate of thirty miles an hour, threatened to sweep us away from the lip of the crater’s gap like flies; and after a few attempts I desisted, promising myself success at another and more favourable time.

In such doings, 2 P.M. had sped. There was a reverse to the medal, Success—the prospect of a night to be spent in the open; and the doctrine of inevitable Compensation taught me to expect some evil, which came, however, in another form. The ascent had occupied seven hours, and there remained barely four till sunset, for five miles to camp. I tried again the Vesuvian style of descent, and narrowly escaped, so loose is the surface, gaining a momentum which would have dashed me against the boulders that studded the base. Under the black cinders lies a stratum of grey ‘_ceneri_,’ which looks white by contrast; at the base of the cone our line of descent appeared a thin glistening thread. When half- way down, the Judge waved a signal from Mount Milnes for me to take the western side of the lava-bed, which we had twice crossed on the up- march. I preferred, however, encountering known rather than unknown troubles. The descent of the Great Peak occupied thirty minutes.

A few words will describe the hurry homewards over the dry and weary land. Skulking Jack Brass was found snugly curled up in a sunny form on a hillside, and received a present which he will not forget. He appeared to be terribly lame, but when time pressed he forgot all his ailments, and devanced the rest of the party. Arrived at Mount Isabel, we awoke King Eyo, who apparently had been hybernating ever since; loaded Two- Glass, and rested ten minutes; a wind was blowing that shrank the mercury to 40°, and made our extremities feel deadly cold. A cloud-bank like a dust haze, 20° deep, was all we could see in the west, and, as we passed our beacon and guide, Mount Helen,

‘The sun’s rim dipp’d, the stars rush’d out,

At one stride came the dark,’

and utter darkness, too, before 7 P.M. It is bad enough to be benighted on a rutty English road. What was it here with a surface of grass tussocks and lava-blocks, deep falls and jagged crevasses? We lighted the wax-ends used for the B. P. They soon burned out, and what was worse they melted the solder of the water-cup. After a heavy fall or two, and shocks enough to break a Town man’s tendon Achilles, or to rupture his diaphragm, we were compelled to halt. The Kru-cry, however, brought a response, and presently we saw firesticks—the excellent Selim being as usual to the fore—dancing in the darkness like Will-o’-the-wisps. The cold night-wind threatening pleurisy kept us moving till we were able to reach camp. We entered at 8·30 P.M., after full twelve hours occupied in getting over ten miles. The Krumen and Eyo all arrived safely, and Kharabu, besides a promise from his master, received a present of cloth in consideration of his good conduct. The day of hard work was followed by a wakeful night, caused by cramp and spasmodic contractions of the lower limbs;[78]—already retribution had begun.

I was astonished by the extreme regularity of the mountain, and by the almost complete absence of those accidents of ground which distinguish Vesuvius, Etna, Stromboli, Pico de Teyde, Popocatapetl, and other volcanoes. Considering the magnitude of the pyramid, its surface is nearly as smooth as it can be up to the crowning vent. Nor is it, as will afterwards appear, an ‘epitome of globe vegetation,’ Alpine types being very rare; whilst the absence of snow deprives it of glaciers, couloirs, debâcles, and moraines, Rigi Kulms, and Monte Rosas. I remarked, however, with pleasure that there were no large watercourses in the upper regions, showing the rains to be scanty; if heavy, meteoric denudation would have stripped the cones of their thin coating of soil. In many places, also, water, confined by higher ground, sinks; these might be converted into tanks, as in Persia and Sindh.

The specimens forwarded to the Geological Museum proved to be all of volcanic origin; scoriæ, lavas, bombs, trachytic traps, sands apparently with an admixture of magnetic iron, and a few crystals of augite and olivine.

In the morning the travellers were distinguished by the looped and windowed raggedness of their dress, and by hobbling about like cheap ‘screws’ after a long hunting-day. Beyond sun and wind-burned hands and face, my companion suffered nothing, and speedily recovered from his sprain. But in an evil hour I had set out in a pair of loose waterproof boots, which began by softening and ended by half-flaying the feet. It was a spectacle next morning when they were removed. This is the fourth recurrence of a similar annoyance, the three others having happened at Meccah, at Harar, and on the hills of Usumbara. Caustic and diachylum were both wanting for some time, till at last a little of the latter was brought up from the lowlands. Presently supervened another African consequence of cold, wet, and over-exertion—swollen feet. To this also I had been a martyr in the Eastern region. In the lowlands the disease is dangerous; it may last three months, and end in the worst consequences of inflammation—ulcerations that cripple the limb. It has little acute suffering. This absence of pain is typical of African disease, as anæsthetic death is of India—in both places the exhaustion of nervous energy may be the cause—and when feeling comes on recovery approaches. The natives, who are equally ignorant of Dr. Allopath’s powder and Dr. Homœopath’s pill, treat it with hydropathic bandages. I first tried arnica plaster, in the absence of diachylum, and then dressings of rum and water, in the want of spirits of wine.[79] My case concluded with a little ague and fever, and I was unable to walk for a week, a fortnight, a month, thus losing thirty days out of forty-six. Thus the exultation of the day was succeeded by the depression of the morrow, and unusual pleasure brought its own penalty.

[Footnote 67: This Hypericum (angustifolium) is described as one of the links between Fernando Po, Camaroons, Abyssinia, and Bourbon: it is common on the Peak of Tenerife, above 2000 feet high, and it ranges on these hills between 7000 and 10,000 feet above sea-level, where, however, it dwindles to a shrub. The smaller stems are as good as rose or cherry sticks for pipes.]

[Footnote 68: In the chart the direct distance between the two peaks is nine miles.]

[Footnote 69: Others were named Mount Emily, bearing N.N.E. ¼ E., and Mount Eliza (one of the three sisters), bearing S. by E.; but they were not in the line of road.]

[Footnote 70: M. Casella’s instrument, which I believe is now greatly improved, was a policeman’s lantern, with the thermometer protruding from the side of the water-cup. It had two great disadvantages, the fragility of the tube and the effect of the wind upon the mercury. The cup, moreover, was soldered instead of being made of block tin.]

[Footnote 71: Measured 70,394 feet.]

[Footnote 72: Little importance can be attached to an aneroid observation at this altitude.]

[Footnote 73: This is on a small scale the Cañada of the Tenerife Peak, a flat strip of ground, more or less broad, silted up with fine pumice.]

[Footnote 74: The same species flourishes in the upper heights of Fernando Po, and there is another which grows in the lowlands.]

[Footnote 75: Neither here, however, nor elsewhere, did we find pumice properly so called.]

[Footnote 76: Solar exposure or radiation is the opposite of temperature. On clear days, when the latter is lowest in the shade the former is highest, and _vice versâ_. Every traveller has felt this, and yet the presence of snow, which merely proves its non-conducting powers upon the highest mountains, has given rise to the popular idea that the nearer we approach the sun the less heat we feel.]

[Footnote 77: The wind, despite the greater rarity of the air, blows with much greater violence at 13,000 than at 5000 feet high. This increase of velocity with height is probably due to our approaching the centre of the aërial current.]

[Footnote 78: This African plague is accounted for by the faculty in various ways. Dr. Clarke of Sierra Leone attributes it to the presence of acrid substances internally, whereas it is most frequent ‘upon an empty stomach.’ Others derive it from inequality of evaporation or radiation from the body, from derangement of the liver, from bad circulation, and from cold producing undue contraction of the muscles. As usual with the obscure nervous disorders, where the scientific can do little, every one has a remedy of his or her own. I have been recommended to sleep with a tub of cold water under the bed, to hold a mutton-bone in the right hand, to stand and stamp when unable to move, and to kick out with the heel when the limb is as rigid as wood. A tight ligature above the afflicted part, like the Arab Hibas, sometimes removes extreme pain. The only remedy, however, is thoroughly to heat the offending member by spirit frictions, hot foot-baths, and swathes of flannel.]

[Footnote 79: The maximum proportions are one part of spirits to five of cold water. Mr. Saker, whose prescription it is, obtained the former by two distillations from trade rum, of which a gallon produced about one quart of rectified alcohol, the rest being water, and a residuum too offensive and poisonous to be endured. A pleasant offering of Europe to her sister Africa!]