The Bush-Rope We
Had Been Hauling On Was Too Worn With The Load To Use Again, And We
Just
Hauled Wiki out with the first one we could drag down and cut;
and Wiki, when he came up, said
We were reckless, and knew nothing
of bush ropes, which shows how ungrateful an African can be. It
makes the perspiration run down my nose whenever I think of it. The
sun was out that day; we were neatly situated on the Equator, and
the air was semisolid, with the stinking exhalations from the swamps
with which the mountain chain is fringed and intersected; and we
were hot enough without these things, because of the violent
exertion of getting these twelve to thirteen-stone gentlemen up
among us again, and the fine varied exercise of getting over the
fall on our own account.
When we got into the cool forest beyond it was delightful;
particularly if it happened to be one of those lovely stretches of
forest, gloomy down below, but giving hints that far away above us
was a world of bloom and scent and beauty which we saw as much of as
earth-worms in a flower-bed. Here and there the ground was strewn
with great cast blossoms, thick, wax-like, glorious cups of orange
and crimson and pure white, each one of which was in itself a
handful, and which told us that some of the trees around us were
showing a glory of colour to heaven alone.
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