The other
boys, who want to go to sleep, threaten to "burst him" if he "no
finish." It's no good - cook carols on, and soon succumbing to the
irresistible charm of music, the other men have to join in the
choruses. The performance goes on for an hour, growing woollier and
woollier in tone, and then dying out in sleep.
I write by the light of an insect-haunted lantern, sitting on the
bed, which is tucked in among the trees some twenty yards away from
the boys' fire. There is a bird whistling in a deep rich note that
I have never heard before.
September 23rd. - Morning gloriously fine. Rout the boys out, and
start at seven, with Sasu, Head man, Xenia, Black boy, Kefalla and
Cook.
The great south-east wall of the mountain in front of us is quite
unflecked by cloud, and in the forest are thousands of bees. We
notice that the tongues of forest go up the mountain in some places
a hundred yards or more above the true line of the belt. These
tongues of forest get more and more heavily hung with lichen, and
the trees thinner and more stunted, towards their ends. I think
that these tongues are always in places where the wind does not get
full play. All those near our camping place on this south-east face
are so.
