Nevertheless expeditions of this kind were commonplace enough to scouts who endeavoured to understand almost every landmark on our border that might harbour the enemy. Sometimes they were fruitless expeditions, sometimes they were the means of obtaining valuable information. [Sidenote: RAINS, SNOWFALL ON KILIMANJARO] For the greater part of the year those frontier operations were carried on in the excessively hot, unchangeable climate of tropical Africa. Through the intensive heat of the piercing overhead sun, the routine work went on day after day, and month after month. Not until December was there change, and then there was a period of heavy torrential rains. But ere the month was out they had ceased again, and the rich green foliage of the acacias, which had sprung in a day to life, had begun to fade and lose their freshness; so soon does the blazing sun dry up the abundant rainfall, and scorch the very earth. [Illustration: KILIMANJARO FROM SOUTH-WEST: 19,700 FEET.] Locusts, and their following of storks, are heralds of the Rains, and near to that season great clouds of them were seen. Remarkable swarms of locusts were witnessed on the 25th November and 5th December, 1915, and again on 21st February, 1916. Great clouds of them, darkening the very sky in their tens of millions, drifted down wind slowly, in a south-westerly direction, over camp on those dates; and above them, on the last occasion, high in the sky, followed a very large flight of black and white storks, sailing along, with the ease of a floating feather, with wing-still, wind-poised motion, apparently planing on the banking of the air; and now and then checking their onward flight, to swing slowly and gracefully in a circle, as if to hesitate and examine the ground far underneath them. At the time of the Rains, too, fresh snow fell on Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, with the elevation of over 19,700 feet. In 1915 the first fresh snowfall was on 25th November, and on the morning of that day a new white coat of snow mantled the peaks of Kibo and Mawensi, and well down their slopes. A native once told me that if he could climb to the far-off glistening snows, he would find rupees. And he seemed seriously to believe that the snows, which glinted silver-like in the sun, were unattainable wealth. On the frontier, when not scouting, or on patrol, or on picket, it sometimes fell to our lot to have a day in camp. [Sidenote: ROUTINE IN CAMP] In camp, “_Réveillé_” was at 5.30 a.m.—just about daybreak. The able men then dressed, and, outside their tents, shook out their dust and insect-ridden blankets, in which they had slept on the bare hard ground. The lazy, and the seedy, and the really sick men, slept on fitfully until the last possible moment before the “Fall In,” at 6.30 a.m.; then reluctantly to turn out in cheerless spirit.