Kilimanjaro from South-West: 19,700 feet.
Locusts, and their following of storks, are heralds of the Rains, and near to that season great clouds of them were seen. Remarkable swarms of locusts were witnessed on the 25th November and 5th December, 1915, and again on 21st February, 1916. Great clouds of them, darkening the very sky in their tens of millions, drifted down wind slowly, in a south-westerly direction, over camp on those dates; and above them, on the last occasion, high in the sky, followed a very large flight of black and white storks, sailing along, with the ease of a floating feather, with wing-still, wind-poised motion, apparently planing on the banking of the air; and now and then checking their onward flight, to swing slowly and gracefully in a circle, as if to hesitate and examine the ground far underneath them.
At the time of the Rains, too, fresh snow fell on Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, with the elevation of over 19,700 feet. In 1915 the first fresh snowfall was on 25th November, and on the morning of that day a new white coat of snow mantled the peaks of Kibo and Mawensi, and well down their slopes.
A native once told me that if he could climb to the far-off glistening snows, he would find rupees. And he seemed seriously to believe that the snows, which glinted silver-like in the sun, were unattainable wealth.
On the frontier, when not scouting, or on patrol, or on picket, it sometimes fell to our lot to have a day in camp.
ROUTINE IN CAMP
In camp, “Réveillé” was at 5.30 a.m.—just about daybreak. The able men then dressed, and, outside their tents, shook out their dust and insect-ridden blankets, in which they had slept on the bare hard ground. The lazy, and the seedy, and the really sick men, slept on fitfully until the last possible moment before the “Fall In,” at 6.30 a.m.; then reluctantly to turn out in cheerless spirit.
On early morning parade “the roll” was first called. The sick were then excused from duty, and the remainder marched off with shovels and picks and axes to dig trenches and construct overhead shell-shelters, wherever the fortifications of our encampment required strengthening.