These Mists Up Here, As Far As My Experience Goes,
Are Always Preceded By A Strange Breath Of Ice-Cold Air - Not
Necessarily A Wind.
Bum then draws my attention to a strange funnel-shaped thing coming
down from the clouds to the north.
A big waterspout, I presume: it
seems to be moving rapidly N.E., and I profoundly hope it will hold
that course, for we have quite as much as we can manage with the
ordinary rain-water supply on this mountain, without having
waterspouts to deal with.
We start off down the mountain as rapidly as we can. Xenia is very
done up, and Head man comes perilously near breaking his neck by
frequent falls among the rocks; my unlucky boots are cut through and
through by the latter. When we get down towards the big crater
plain, it is a race between us and the pursuing mist as to who shall
reach the camp first, and the mist wins, but we have just time to
make out the camp's exact position before it closes round us, so we
reach it without any real difficulty. When we get there, about one
o'clock, I find the men have kept the fires alight and Cook is
asleep before one of them with another conflagration smouldering in
his hair. I get him to make me tea, while the others pack up as
quickly as possible, and by two we are all off on our way down to
the forest camp.
The boys are nervous in their way of going down over the mountain
wall. The misadventures of Cook alone would fill volumes. Monrovia
boy is out and away the best man at this work. Just as we reach the
high jungle grass, down comes the rain and up comes the mist, and we
have the worst time we have had during our whole trip, in our
endeavours to find the hole in the forest that leads to our old
camp.
Unfortunately, I must needs go in for acrobatic performances on the
top of one of the highest, rockiest hillocks. Poising myself on one
leg I take a rapid slide sideways, ending in a very showy leap
backwards which lands me on the top of the lantern I am carrying to-
day, among miscellaneous rocks. There being fifteen feet or so of
jungle grass above me, all the dash and beauty of my performance are
as much thrown away as I am, for my boys are too busy on their own
accounts in the mist to miss me. After resting some little time as
I fell, and making and unmaking the idea in my mind that I am
killed, I get up, clamber elaborately to the top of the next
hillock, and shout for the boys, and "Ma," "ma," comes back from my
flock from various points out of the fog. I find Bum and Monrovia
boy, and learn that during my absence Xenia, who always fancies
himself as a path-finder, has taken the lead, and gone off somewhere
with the rest.
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