1. We drove first to the foot of the mountains, and then with one guide in front and the other behind we set off on foot, along an uncompromising track that led directly upwards to the saddle between Muhavura and Mgahinga. A watercourse rushed down the mountain beside us, a bright hot sun burst through the clouds, and as we climbed the valley behind us spread out marvelously below; beyond it range after range of hills rolled away towards the Congo. But after the first few minutes I gave up looking at any of these splendid things. Instead I kept my head resolutely downwards, concentrating upon the next step ahead. It seemed at times that we were climbing almost perpendicularly. Pretty soon we were in the bamboo belt. Bamboo grows on these central African mountains in thin stalks from ten to twenty feet high, and so thickly that it is often impenetrable. One of the guides took his panga, a broad hooked blade about eighteen inches long, and cut me a walking stick. I suppose it helped, but already I was getting beyond caring.
     2. Then at last after some two hours or more we came out on a clearing and rested. We were now just below 8000 feet, and all around us unexpected things were growing, banks of huge nettles, orchids sprouting from the grass, plants like bulrushes and those bright flame-coloured flowering reeds which as children we used to call red-hot pokers. The bamboo here had thinned out a little, and on the heights of the two mountains above we could see the curious productions of the alpine zones, giant heather, giant groundsel and giant lobelias. Everything here was giant size but reduced to the appearance of littleness by the tremendous space around us. A vast cloud, shot through with sunlight, was tearing off the crest of Muhavura.