[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

CLIMBING SANTO PEAK I 85

Peak, separated from us by only one deep valley,
as far as I could judge in the tangle of forest that
covered everything. The guides again pretended
that we were standing on the highest mountain
then, and that it would take at least a fortnight to
reach the real Peak. I assured them that I meant
to be on its top by noon, and when they showed
no inclination whatever to go on, I left them and
went on with my boys. We had to dive into a
deep ravine, where we found a little water and
refilled our bottles. Then we had to ascend the
other side, which was trying, as we had lost the
trail and had to climb over rocks and through the
thickest bush I ever met. The ground was covered
with a dense network of moss-grown trunks that
were mouldering there, through which we often fell
up to our shoulders, while vines and ferns wound
round our bodies, so that we did our climbing more
'with our arms than with our feet. After a while
one of the guides joined us, but he did not know
the way; at last we found it, but there were many
ups and downs before we attained the summit. The
v weather now changed, and we were suddenly sur-
rounded by the thick fog that always covers the
Peak before noon. The great humidity and the
altitude combine to create a peculiar vegetation
in this region; the tree—ferns are tremendously
developed, and the natives pretend that a peculiar
species of pigeon lives here.

’ I was surprised to find any paths at all up here;
but the natives come here to shoot pigeons, and