ican, as is quite in accordance with the
fitness of things. Now let us make use of our remaining daylight to get
down to a lower level, for, with the setting of the sun, it will be
bitterly cold up here, and I have no fancy for spending the night in a
temperature that will probably fall below freezing point."

So saying, Earle folded up his map and, replacing it in his knapsack,
gave the word for the party to proceed, Dick and himself taking the
lead. Picking their way among towering rocks and along narrow ledges,
they travelled a distance of some three miles and effected a descent of
about two thousand feet before night overtook them, finally pitching
their camp on a little rocky plateau under the lee of an enormous
vertical cliff, which effectually sheltered them from the icy wind which
sprang up and roared overhead with the force of a gale almost
immediately after sunset.

Notwithstanding the shelter afforded by the cliff, however, the cold was
intense, and the party, acclimatised by this time to the hot, humid
atmosphere of the plains, suffered severely, the more so that they were
camped among bare rocks without a vestige of vegetation of any kind, and
were therefore without the materials for a fire; the return of daylight
therefore found them more than ready to resume the march, in the hope
that before long they would reach a region where fuel of some sort would
allow them to kindle a fire and prepare a much-needed hot breakfast.

They reached such a spot after about an hour's march, camping in the
shelter of a small clump of stunted pines; and here, after breakfast,
Busa approached the two white men with the request that, having
performed his task of guiding the party to a spot from which the "city
of palaces," could be seen, he and his bearers might now be permitted to
set out upon the return journey, he and they being anxious to recross
the divide during the hours of daylight, and so escape the bitter cold
from which they had suffered so severely during the preceding night.
The request seemed a reasonable one, for the old man's services were no
longer needed; Earle therefore liberally rewarded the old fellow and his
eight bearers, and dismissed them with a message of greeting and thanks
to the king.

The two parties broke camp simultaneously, Busa and his bearers taking
the back trail up the path which they had all descended an hour earlier,
while the others, under Earle's leadership, proceeded down the mou