The lateness of our start rendered any but a short halt impossible, so the repast was a hasty one. The increasing steepness showed that we had begun the ascent in earnest. A path there certainly was, but, as a rule, it was not easily discerned amid the thick growth of tropical shrubs. As far as the density of the forest would allow us to examine the country to any distance, we appeared to be mounting the ridge of a spur of the main mountain mass. A deep valley lay on either hand, at the bottom of which we could hear the rumbling of a stream. The number of cockatoos increased as we got higher, and some were shot for culinary purposes subsequently. We saw some handsome pigeons, and at least one small flight of the large beaked bird called toucan, though probably it differs from the South American bird to which that name rightly belongs. Ignorance of ornithology made some of us doubt if it were the hornbill or _buceros_, one of which we heard afterwards overhead puffing like a locomotive, on our way down. The profusion of ferns, palms, orchids, and flowering shrubs was striking. The ascent was really a climb, as the hands had to be used nearly as much as the feet. At one or two points, the face of a steep water-worn rock had to be scaled. Frequent short halts became absolutely necessary; and the head of our long and straggling line of white men and carriers usually resumed the work of ascending as the rear reached the point at which the former had rested. When the afternoon had well advanced—the only watch in the company having been broken at a specially stiff bit of climbing, the exact time could not be told—we had reached a comparatively open space, which our guide declared to be the summit. The impossibility of this being so was demonstrated by the appearance of the true summit, of which a temporary break in the clouds usually hiding it, now permitted a glimpse. Our guide thereupon asserted that it was the only summit which he knew; that no native of the country had ever attempted to mount higher; and that, anyhow, no path was to be found farther on. These assertions were probably true. The correctness at least of the last was soon established beyond the chance of doubt; subsequent progress disclosed the fact that the path, which for the last hour had been scarcely visible by the naked eye, ceased altogether.