They Said They Had Sent To The Lower Ranch For Some Flour, And In The Meantime They Gave Me Some Milk In A Broken Bowl, Their "Nearest Approach To A Tumbler," They Said.

I was almost starving, for all our food was on the pack-mule.

This is the place where we had been told that we could obtain tea, flour, beef, and fowls!

By some fatality my pen, ink, and knitting were on the pack-mule; it was very cold, the afternoon fog closed us in, and darkness came on prematurely, so that I felt a most absurd sense of ennui, and went over to the cook-house, where I found Gandle cooking, and his native wife with a heap of children and dogs lying round the stove. I joined them till my clothes were dry, on which the man, who in spite of his rough exterior, was really friendly and hospitable, remarked that he saw I was "one of the sort who knew how to take people as I found them."

This regular afternoon mist which sets in at a certain altitude, blotting out the sun and sky, and bringing the horizon within a few yards, makes me certain after all that the mists of rainless Eden were a phenomenon, the loss of which is not to be regretted.

Still the afternoon hung on, and I went back to the house feeling that the most desirable event which the future could produce would be - a meal. Now and then the men came in and talked for a while, and as the darkness and cold intensified, they brought in an arrangement extemporised out of what looked like a battered tin bath, half full of earth, with some lighted faggots at the top, which gave out a little warmth and much stinging smoke. Actual, undoubted, night came on without Mr. Green, of whose failure I felt certain, and without food, and being blinded by the smoke, I rolled myself in a blanket and fell asleep on the bench, only to wake in a great fright, believing that the volcano house was burning over my head, and that a venerable missionary was taking advantage of the confusion to rob my saddle-bags, which in truth one of the men was moving out of harm's way, having piled up the fire two feet high.

Presently a number of voices outside shouted Haole! and Mr. Green came in shaking the water from his waterproof, with the welcome words, "Everything's settled for to-morrow." Mr. Reid threw cold water on the ascent, and could give no help; and Mr. G. being thus left to himself, after a great deal of trouble, has engaged as guide an active young goat-hunter, who, though he has never been to the top of the mountain, knows other parts of it so well that he is sure he can take us up. Mr. G. also brings an additional mule and pack- horse, so that our equipment is complete, except in the matter of cruppers, which we have been obliged to make for ourselves out of goats' hair rope, and old stockings.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 203 of 244
Words from 105805 to 106327 of 127766