was." Then he sipped more tembo, and reflected. After a pause he turned to me and continued, " And now I will tell you a tale. When I plant a seed or a sappling here in my plantation, I let it grow quietly at first-I do not pull it up to look at its roots, and I do not pluck its early blossoms or its tender leaves. I wait until it is mature, and then," he added thoughtfully, looking straight before him, "if it fails to bear abundant fruit, I cut it down."

Then our conversation ranged over the most varied subjects-European life, a description from me of an ironclad-manowari (man-of-war) as Mandara called it -the history and configuration of Čaga from Mandara, whose notion of local geography was singularly correct -the Čaga language, the English tongue, and so on.

The interview ended in rapturous friendship. Mandara declared himself my father, claimed me as a son, and announced, almost hysterically, a complete community of goods (a statement to which I inwardly demurred). "Whenever the white man wanted a cow or a goat, he would just take them from the herds of his father Mandara, and whenever Mandara desired a handsome gun or a European bed, he would use those that belonged to his white child."

As an earnest of this happy arrangement he sent for a splendid ram, with an immensely fat tail, a ewe, and a lamb, and handed them over to me as a little "kitowéo" (relish), to take back to my camp. I then shook his great hand enthusiastically, and with many a parting shout of "Kwa-heri (good-bye), Mandara," "Kwa-heri, mtoto wangu!" (good-bye, my child), I turned my steps back to Kitimbiriu, my men enthusiastic over the "manéno mazuri" (fine words) which had passed between their master and

the chief of Moši. Of course on my return I made up a quantity of the things he most coveted, especially a number of packets of European seeds, and sent them to him as an equivalent for the sheep. After this interview the relations between Mandara and myself assumed such a friendly character, that I felt myself able to rely entirely on his goodwill as a protection against the rapacity of his followers. Consequently, the very next day I despatched twenty men to Taita for the purpose, already mentioned, of bringing the last instalment of goods left behind.

When these had departed, I was now at liberty to turn my attention to more congenial studies. I installed my two collectors in a quickly constructed hut, unpacked the bales of botanical paper, the cases of taxidermist paraphernalia, and other necessaries in natural history collecting, and set to work to amass and preserve as many specimens of the fauna and flora around me as I could obtain. Having given every man his allotted task, and being able to trust the general supervision of the settlement to my Indian servant, I was freer in my movements than I had been for a long time, and could ramble about alone all day with the certainty of finding everything going on well when I returned. With a light heart I was able to explore the beauties of my African Switzerland. First of all, I desired to obtain a sketch of the snowy dome of Kibô. This, the highest summit of Kilimanjaro, was not always on view. For weeks together he would be swathed in clouds. But should you be an early riser, you would hardly fail to catch a glimpse of him just at sunrise, when before the cold breath of morning the unfolding clouds part and scatter, and disclose his splendid crown of virgin snow, irradiated

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 mountain of the Snow Fiend," and the Masai more reverently 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 snowcovered 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

Fig. 34.-A Native Dam.

poor half-hour in which to sketch the features of their