e a long time to return to camp. So we
hastened on our return journey.

The sunset that night--which we watched from that high point of
vantage--was really too stupendous for words, and not unlike an aurora
borealis--red, gold and violet lines radiating from the sun like a
gorgeous fan and expanding as they approached the summit of the sky
vault. The descent was more difficult than the ascent, owing to the
slippery nature of the rock.

At night, while back in camp, we saw to the W.N.W., quite low on the
horizon, a brilliant planet--possibly Venus. The stars and planets
appeared always wonderfully bright and extraordinarily large on fine
nights. Whether it was an optical illusion or not I do not know, but the
phenomenon, which lasted some hours, was seen by all my men, and appeared
also when the planet was seen through a powerful hand telescope. It
seemed to discharge powerful intermittent flashes, red and greenish, only
toward the earth. Those flashes were similar to and more luminous than
the tail of a small comet, and of course much shorter--perhaps four to
five times the diameter of the planet in their entire length.

Whether this phenomenon was due to an actual astral disturbance, or to
light-signalling to the earth or other planet, it would be difficult--in
fact, impossible--to ascertain with the means I had at my command.
Perhaps it was only an optical illusion caused by refraction and
deflected rays of vision, owing to the effect upon the atmosphere of the
heated rocky mass by our side and under us--such as is the case in
effects of mirage. I am not prepared to express an opinion, and only
state what my men and I saw, merely suggesting what seem to me the most
plausible explanations.

At moments the planet seemed perfectly spherical, with a marvellously
definite outline, and then the flashes were shot out especially to the
right as one looked at the planet, and downward slightly at an angle, not
quite perpendicularly.

That night, May 25th-26th, was cold: min. 58 deg. Fahr. But during the day at
9 a.m. the thermometer already registered 85 deg. Fahr.

The sky, half covered by flimsy transparent mist to the east, and by
globular thin clouds, large overhead and of smaller dimensions to the
west, developed later in the day into a charming mackerel sky, with two
great arches of mist to the south, and delicate horizontal layers of mist
near the earth.

It was only when we were some distance off that we obtaine