In preparing for the actual ascent to the snows from Bihunga we were obliged to reduce our outfit to mere essentials. A large caravan would have experienced considerable difficulty in the matter of food; and each man was only able to carry a load of twenty to twenty-five pounds, which was fastened to a strong sling of fibre and slipped round the forehead. This method of carrying is adopted by the Bakonjo tribe, and leaves the arms perfectly free for climbing up on fours, which is so often necessary. I was the only member of the party privileged with a bed; the two men had to content themselves with waterproof sacks and blankets. Our boys judged spoons, forks, and knives as non-essentials and reduced us to two forks and one pen-knife, so for some days we had to return to the most primitive manners at meal-times. Our first day’s real climbing began in a kind of retrograde direction, for we had to slide down a hopelessly greasy track for some two hundred yards. My two supporters evidently anticipated a lively time; they were required to render aid at once; the fact was, my feet refused to stick, and in struggling to keep me back with yards of calico brought round under my arms, I nearly succeeded in dragging them down head-first. They were urged to manage better than that, and they promised to improve, but explained how they had had no practice at that kind of travelling, and were a little unprepared for it. I again tried the plan of a calico body sling when a very steep bracken ascent had to be scaled, and the sun was at its height. The men went in front, each pulling most vigorously at the calico end which he held, but they somehow always managed to jerk in the wrong place. Just as I had breathlessly succeeded in securing a foothold a big pull from the front almost robbed me of my last gasp. So I dispensed with such questionable aid and found all the help I wanted in a long bamboo which our guide presented to me as a kind of charm, for it had taken him up to the glacier when he escorted Sir Harry Johnston’s expedition. At an altitude of seven thousand feet we reached the point where tropical vegetation assumes its most exquisite form. The river Mubuku had to be crossed and recrossed six times in the one march, and all along its river bed was the richest display of varied forms of vegetable life. Several species of palm trees, a few wayward bamboos, tree-ferns, a tree resembling the English yew, and the bright red-flowering Ekirikiti tree. The forests passed through frequently recalled some of the most charming parts of Devonshire; the ground was carpeted with ferns and moss interspersed with forget-me-nots and orchids. [Illustration: CROSSING THE MULUKU RIVER.]