This face of the mountain by "the Major from Calabar" during the
previous dry season.
We keep on up a steep grass-covered slope, and finally reach the top
of the wall. The immense old crater floor before us is to-day the
site of a seething storm, and the peak itself quite invisible. My
boys are quite demoralised by the cold. I find most of them have
sold the blankets I gave them out at Buana; and those who have not
sold them have left them behind at Buea, from laziness perhaps, but
more possibly from a confidence in their powers to prevent us
getting so far.
I believe if I had collapsed too - the cold tempted me to do so as
nothing else can - they would have lain down and died in the cold
sleety rain.
I sight a clump of gnarled sparsely-foliaged trees bedraped heavily
with lichen, growing in a hollow among the rocks; thither I urge the
men for shelter and they go like storm-bewildered sheep. My bones
are shaking in my skin and my teeth in my head, for after the
experience I had had of the heat here on Monday I dared not clothe
myself heavily.
The men stand helpless under the trees, and I hastily take the load
of blankets Herr Liebert lent us off a boy's back and undo it,
throwing one blanket round each man, and opening my umbrella and
spreading it over the other blankets.
