There was one umbrageous cloud on Little Wanderobo Dog's horizon, however—a cloud that he soon learned to evade. The Mohammedans didn't like him. It is a part of their creed to hate dogs almost as much as pork, and to be touched by a dog means many prayers to Allah to wipe away the stain of contact. But Little Wanderobo Dog was not conversant with the Mohammedan creed at first, and in his gladness and joy of life he embraced everybody in the waves of affection and friendliness that radiated from him like a golden aura.

The Somali gunbearers were disciples of Allah, and they began to kick at him before he was within eight feet of them. Two of the tent boys were also Mohammedans, but they had to be more circumspect in their hostility. Whenever Little Wanderobo Dog came around they would edge away, which gave the former a certain sense of importance because it was flattering to have a number of grown-up men fear him so much. Then there were a number of the porters who were Mohammedans of a sort, but these were wont to say, "O, what is a creed among friends?"

It was quite cold up on the plateau at night. Sometimes the wind swept down from the distant fringe of mountains and shook the tents until the tent pegs jumped out of the ground. The night guard would pile more wood on the big central camp-fire near our tents and the porters, in their eighteen or twenty little tents, would huddle closer together for warmth. They were nights for at least three blankets, and even four were not too many.

Consequently Little Wanderobo Dog was confronted by the necessity of adopting a place to sleep where he would be safe from those sharp arrows of the north wind that swept across the high stretches of the plateau. So he ingratiated himself into my tent with many friendly wags of his tail and a countenance of such benign faith in human nature that he was allowed to remain. At many times in the night I was awakened and I knew that Little Wanderobo Dog was dreaming about some wicked swamp ogre that was trying to kick him.

At first he was not a silent sleeper, but later on these awful nightmares came with less frequency and I presume his dreams took on a more beatific character. As a watch-dog I don't believe he had great value, because of his readiness to make friends with anything and anybody. If a leopard had come into the tent he would have said, "Excuse me, but I think you are in the wrong place," but he would never have barked or conducted himself in an ungentlemanly way.

One could never tell what was likely to come into one's tent at night, even with armed askaris patrolling the camp all night long. One cold night, before Little Wanderobo Dog had come to live with us, I was awakened by a curious rustle of the tent flaps. I listened and then watched the tent flap for some moments, thinking that the wind might have been responsible. But there was no wind and it seemed beyond doubt that some animal had entered.

For a long time I listened, but could hear nothing; and yet at the same time I had a positive conviction that I was not alone in the tent. I wondered if it could be a leopard, or some small member of the cat tribe. I knew that it wasn't a dog, for there were no dogs anywhere in the vicinity of the camp. As the minutes went by without any hostile move from the darkness, I decided to let whatever it was stay until it got ready to depart. So I went to sleep.

Once more in the night I was awakened by a noise in the tent and as nearly as I could diagnose the situation, the noise came from under my cot. But, I reasoned, if the animal is there, it's behaving itself and if it were on mischief bent it would have transacted its business long before. So I went to sleep again.

Just at dawn the clarion crow of a rooster came from under my bed. It was one of the roosters the cook had bought from a Boer settler and had come in to escape the coldness of the night air without. It was a most agreeable surprise, for there was a homelike sound in the crow of the rooster that was pleasantly reminiscent of the banks of the Wabash far away.

After Little Wanderobo Dog became "acclimated" to the warm and friendly atmosphere of hospitality of the camp, he began to show evidences of tact and diplomacy. He bestowed his attentions, with unerring impartiality to all of us. In the evening, and frequently during the day, he would pay ceremonial visits to each of the four tents of the msungu, as the white people are called. First he would approach the threshold of one tent, cock an inquiring ear at the occupant, and upon receiving the customary sign of welcome would wag himself in and pay his respects. After a short call he would wag his way out and call at the next tent, where the same performance was repeated.

[Drawing: A Ceremonial Call]

He never burst into a place like a cyclone of happiness, but rather, he sort of oozed in and oozed out, his mild brown eyes brimming with gentleness and his tail, that eloquent insignia of canine gladness, wigwagging messages of good cheer.

In one of the tents of the msungu there was a pet monkey. It had been captured down on the Tana River months before and at first was wild and vicious. As time went by it lost much of its wildness and to those it liked was affectionate and friendly. To all others it presented variable moods, sometimes friendly and sometimes unexpectedly and unreasonably hostile. We feared that Little Wanderobo Dog would have some bad moments with the little Tana River monkey, and their first meeting was awaited with keen interest. We thought the monkey would scratch all the gentleness out of the Little Wanderobo Dog's eyes and that the two animals would become bitter enemies.

But nothing of the sort happened. Little Wanderobo Dog managed the matter with rare tact. He succeeded in slowly overcoming the monkey's prejudices, then in inspiring confidence, and finally in establishing play relations. It was worth a good deal to see the dog and monkey playing together, the latter scampering down from his tent-pole aery, leaping on the dog, and scampering hurriedly over the latter, with a quick retreat to the invulnerable heights of the tent-pole. Little Wanderobo Dog would allow the monkey to roam at will over his features and anatomy, thereby showing tolerance which I thought impossible for any animal to show. After Little Wanderobo Dog had paid his devoirs to his host, which he did each day with great punctiliousness, he would then retire to some sunny spot and enjoy his siesta. He was great on siestas and usually had several each day.

[Drawing: The Entente Cordiale]

In time he learned to distinguish between Mohammedans and other dark-complexioned people and held himself aloof from the former, thereby escaping any humiliating races with the heavy boots of the gunbearers and other followers of Allah. He made friends with little Ali, the monkey's valet, a small Swahili boy who looked like a chocolate drop in color, and like a tooth-powder ad in disposition. It was Ali's duty to carry the monkey on our marches.

The little gray monkey, with its venerable looking black face fringed with a sunburst of white hair, would be tied to an old umbrella of the Sairey Gamp pattern, and would sit upon it as the small boy carried it along the trails on his shoulder, like a musket. Sometimes when the sun was strong the umbrella would be raised to shield the monkey's eyes, which could not stand the fierce glare incident to a long march upon sun-baked trails. At such times the monkey, who rejoiced in the brief name of J.T. Jr.—the same being emblazoned on the little silver collar around its neck—at such times the monkey would scamper from shoulder to shoulder of the small boy, with occasional excursions up in the woolly kinks of the heights above. It was a funny picture and one that never failed to amuse those who watched it.

Well, Little Wanderobo Dog, by some prescient instinct hardly to be expected in one brought up in a swamp, decided that little Ali and the monkey were to be his "companions of the march." So, when the tents were struck and Abdi, the head-man, shouted "Funga nizigo yaka!" and the tented city of yesterday became a scattered heap of sixty-pound porters' loads, Little Wanderobo would seek out Ali and prepare to bear him company during the long stretches of the march. And then when the long line of horsemen, native soldiers, porters, tent boys, gunbearers, ox gharries, and all began to wind their sinuous way over veldt or through forest, there was none in the line more picturesque than Ali and J.T. Jr. surrounded by the affable Little Wanderobo Dog.

[Photograph: Being Posed for a Post Mortem Picture]

[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. The Triumvirate]

[Drawing: The Three Comrades]

It is little wonder that friendship soon ripened into love, and that we all became speedily and irrevocably attached to the little swamp angel. His presence in any gathering was like a benediction of good cheer, and when his tail was in full swing he looked like a golden jubilee. As I say, it was no wonder we liked him, and I think I may also say, without flattering ourselves, that the sentiment was reciprocated. I don't believe the joy he showed at all times could have been assumed. It must have been pure joy, without alloy.

His table manners were above reproach. He would, never grab or show unseemly greed. He awaited our pleasure and each bone or chop that fell his way was received with every token of mute but eloquent gratitude. You were constantly made to feel that he loved you for yourself and not for what he hoped you would give him. If I were to be wrecked on a desert island, I believe there is hardly more than one person that I'd prefer to have as my sole companion than Little Wanderobo Dog.

Perhaps a few words about the architecture of the little dog might not come amiss. He was built somewhat on the lines of the German renaissance, being low and rakish like a dachshund, but with just a little more freeboard than the dachshund. His legs were straight instead of bowed, as are those of his distinguished German cousin. His ears were hardly as pendulous, being rather more trenchant than pendulous, and therefore more mobile in action. His tail was facile and retrousse, with a lateral swing of about a foot and an indicated speed of seventeen hundred to the minute. When you add to these many charms, those mild eyes, surcharged with love light, and a bark as sweet as the bark of the frangipanni tree and as cheerful as the song of the meadow-lark, you may realize some of the estimable qualities that distinguished Little Wanderobo Dog.

For some weeks he stayed with us, Tray-like in his faithfulness, and always in the vanguard when danger threatened the rear. One day our caravan passed through a group of migrating Wanderobos. There were a dozen or so of men, all armed with spears and bows and arrows; also fifteen or twenty women, thirty or forty totos, and about a score of dogs.

Here was the test. Would Little Wanderobo Dog, reclaimed from the swamp, harken to the call of the blood and join the band of his own kind? If he did, we could only bow our heads in grief and submission, for after all were not we only foster friends and not blood relations? But Little Wanderobo Dog never wavered in his allegiance to us. He had planted his lance by our colors and with these he would stick till death.

He passed those other Wanderobo dogs as if they were creatures from another world. If he felt tempted to join his fellow dogs, there was no indication of it, and at night when we reached our camp we found our faithful follower at his accustomed post, stanch, firm and true to his colors, which were black and tan.

But alas, there comes a time when the best of friends must part. And the dark day came when I saw Little Wanderobo Dog for the last time. It was at Escarpment. Our long months of hunting were over. Our horses and porters and all our equipment were on the train bound for Nairobi, where we were to settle our affairs and leave Africa and its happy hunting ground. Little Wanderobo Dog had been let out of his first-class compartment in the train and was running up and down the platform, wigwagging messages of gladness with his tail and sniffing friends and strangers with dog-like curiosity. Some friends of ours were at the train to say howdy-do and to shake our hands, and with these the little dog was soon on friendly terms.

When the train whistle blew and the bell was rung and some more whistles blew and more bells were rung, Little Wanderobo Dog was taken back into his car. The last good-bys were said and we were off for Nairobi. Suddenly there was a startled cry, a whisk of a tail, and the dog was gone—out of the car window. He lit on his nose, but as far back as we could see he sat in the middle of the next track and gazed at the receding train. Two days later Mrs. Tarlton came down from Escarpment and said that she had rescued the dog and that he was installed in the hospitable home of Mrs. Hampson, where he would remain until he rejoined those members of our party who were to remain in Africa some months longer. It is likely that Little Wanderobo Dog may be taken on a great elephant hunt in Uganda and, who knows, some time he may visit America. I hope so, for I'd like to give him a dinner.

[Drawing: Our Last View]



CHAPTER XIV

WHO'S WHO IN JUNGLELAND. THE HARTEBEEST AND THE WILDEBEEST, THE AMUSING GIRAFFE AND THE UBIQUITOUS ZEBRA, THE LOVELY GAZELLE AND THE GENTLE IMPALLA

In the course of the average shooting experience in British East Africa the sportsman is likely to see between twenty and thirty different species of animals. From the windows of the car as he journeys from Mombasa to Nairobi, three hundred and twenty-seven miles, he may definitely count upon seeing at least seven of these species: Wildebeest, hartebeest, Grant's gazelle, Thompson's gazelle, zebra, impalla, and giraffe, with the likelihood of seeing in addition some wart-hogs and a distant rhinoceros, and the remote possibility of seeing cheetah, lion, and hyena. Of the bird varieties the traveler will be sure of seeing many ostriches, some giant bustards, and perhaps a sedate secretary-bird or two.

[Photograph: Hassan and a Hartebeest]

[Photograph: The Author's Home in Africa]

[Photograph: Beautiful Upland Country]

These animals are the common varieties, and after a short time in the country the stranger learns to tell them apart. He knows the zebra from his previous observation in circuses; he also does not have to be told what the giraffe is, but the other ones of the seven common varieties he must learn, for most of them are utterly strange to an American eye.

[Drawing: Gazelle, with Wildebeest in Background]

He soon learns to pick out the wildebeest, or gnu, by its American buffalo appearance; he comes to know the little Thompson's gazelle by its big black stripe on its white sides and by its frisky tail that is always flirting back and forth. The Grant's gazelle is a little harder to pick out at first, and one is likely to get the Grant's and Tommy's confused. But after a short time the difference is apparent, the Grant's being much larger in stature and has much larger horns and is minus the Thompsonian perpetual motion tail. It certainly is a stirring tail! The impalla is about the same size as the Grant's gazelle, but has horns of a lyrate shape.

The hartebeest is speedily identified, because he is unlike any other antelope in appearance and exists in such large numbers in nearly every part of East Africa. Indeed, if a returned traveler were asked what animal is most typical of the country he would at once name the hartebeest. He sees it so much and so often that after a time it seems to be only a necessary fixture in the landscape. A horizon without a few hartebeests on it would seem to be lacking in completeness.

Furthermore, the stranger soon learns that the hartebeest is commonly called by its native name, kongoni, and by the time his shooting trip is over the sight of the ubiquitous kongoni has become as much of his daily experience as the sight of his tent or his breakfast table. To me the kongoni appealed most strongly because of his droll appearance and because of a many-sided character that stirs one's imagination.

He is big and awkward in appearance and action; his face is long and thin and always seems to wear a quizzical look of good humor, as if he were amused at something. Others besides myself have remarked upon this, so I am hoping that the kongoni wore this amused look even at times when he was not looking at me. His long, rakish horns are mounted on a pedicle that extends above his head, thus accentuating the droll length of his features. His withers are unusually high and add to the awkward appearance of the animal. Standing, the kongoni is a picture of alert, interested good humor; running, he is extremely funny, as he bounces along on legs that seem to be stiffened so that he appears to rise and fall in his stride like a huge rubber ball. We made quite a study of the kongoni, for he is a most interesting animal. He is unselfish and vigilant in protecting the other creatures of the plain. His eyes are as keen as those of a hawk, and when a herd is feeding there are always several kongoni sentinels posted on ant-hills in such a strategic way that not a thing moves anywhere on the plains that escapes their attention. Oftentimes I have cautiously crept to the top of a ridge to scan the plains, and there, a mile away, a kongoni would be looking at me with great interest.

If you try to approach he will remain where he is until his warning sneezes have alarmed all the other animals, and finally, when all have fled, he goes gallumphing along in the rear. He is the self-appointed protector of his fellow creatures, the sentinel of the plains. I have seen him run back into danger in order to alarm a herd of unsuspecting zebras.

He leads the wildebeests to water and he lends his eyes to the elephants as they feed. With nearly every herd of game, or near by, will be found the faithful kongoni, always alert, watchful, and vigilant, and it is nearly always his cry of warning that sends the beasts of the plains flying from dangers that they can not see.

The sportsman swears at the kongoni because it so often alarms the quarry he is stalking. How very often it happens! The hunter sees afar some trophy that he is eager to secure and straightway begins a careful stalk of many hundred yards. At last, after much patient work, he reaches a point where he feels that he can chance a shot. He takes a careful sight and at that moment a kongoni that has been silently watching him from some place or other gives the alarm, and away goes the trophy beyond reach of a bullet. And then how the hunter curses at the kongoni, who has stopped some little distance away and is regarding him with that quaint, lugubriously funny look. It almost seems to be laughing at him.

One day I tried to shoot a topi. It was a broiling hot day and the sun hung dead above and drove its burning javelins into me as I crept along. For seven hundred yards, on hands and knees, I slowly and painfully made my way. The grass wore through the knees of my trousers and the sharp stubbles cut my palms; once a snake darted out of a clump of grass just as my hand was descending upon it, and lizards frequently shot away within a yard of my nose. My neck was nearly broken from looking forward while on my hands and knees, and it was nearly an hour of creeping progress that I spent while stalking that topi.

When I got within two hundred and fifty yards, and was just ready to take a careful aim, with an ant-hill as a rest, a kongoni somewhere gave the alarm, and away went the topi, safe and sound but badly scared. The kongoni went a little way off and then turned and grinned broadly. I was momentarily tempted to shoot him, but on second thought I realized that he had acted nobly from the animal point of view, so I forgave him.

[Drawing: Outward Bound—Reading Your Thoughts—Concluding your Intentions Are Hostile]

The kongoni seems to be gifted with a clairvoyant instinct. He knows when you don't want to shoot him and when you do. If you start out in the morning with no hostile intentions toward him he will allow you to approach to within a short distance. He will be alert and watchful, but he will show no anxiety. But just suppose for an instant that you change your mind. Suppose you say to yourself that the porters have had no meat for several days and that it might be well to shoot a kongoni. The latter knows what is passing in your mind long before you have made a single movement to betray your intentions. He begins to edge away, ready in an instant to go bounding rapidly beyond rifle shot.

I've seen a herd of kongoni standing quite near, watching me with curious interest, but without fear. Perhaps I was intent upon something else and hardly noticed them. Suddenly a villainous thought might enter my head, such as "That big kongoni has enormous horns," and instantly the herd would prick up their ears, run a few steps, and then turn to verify their suspicions. Then, if the villainous thought still lurked in my brain, they would sneeze shrilly and go galloping away in the distance. There is no way to explain this except to attribute it to thought transference, and this in spite of the fact that the kongoni doesn't understand English.

The kongoni is found nearly every place in East Africa. Along the railway between Makindu and Nairobi the species is called Coke's hartebeest. Farther up the railway the species is Neumann's hartebeest, while still beyond, on the Guas Ngishu Plateau and the Mau escarpment, the species is called Jackson's hartebeest. In the main the three varieties are almost the same; it is in the horns that the chief distinction lies, with lesser differences in color and stature. The hunter has been allowed to kill ten of each on his license, but under the new game ordinance in force since December, 1909, only four Jackson's are allowed and twenty Coke's instead of ten.

[Drawing: The Young Kongoni Is Very Funny]

When we went across the Guas Ngishu Plateau in early November we saw thousands of Jackson's hartebeest, and never a calf. When we came back in late December and early January we saw hundreds and hundreds of calves, many of them less than a day old. The stork must have been busy, for they all arrived at once. These little calves come into the world fully equipped for running, and almost immediately after birth go bounding along after their mothers, so awkward and so funny that I'm not surprised that their own mothers look perpetually amused.

The hartebeest, or kongoni, is hard to kill. The Dutch gave him the name for that reason. It often seems as if bullets have no effect on him. He will absorb lead without losing a trace of his good-humored look, and after he has been shot several times he will go bounding earnestly away, as if nothing was the matter. If he succeeds in joining a herd there is little way of distinguishing which one has been shot, unless he suddenly exhibits signs or falls over. Otherwise he is quite likely to gallop away, far beyond pursuit, and then slowly succumb to his wounds.

Again I've seen them knocked over and lie as if dead, but before one could approach they would be up and off as good as ever. This is the great tragedy of the conscientious hunter's life—the escape of a wounded animal beyond pursuit—and the thought of it is one that keeps him awake at night with a remorseful heart and saddened thoughts. Whenever I shall think of Africa in the future, I shall think of my old friend, the kongoni, dotting the landscape and sticking his inquiring ears over various spots on the horizon. In four and a half months I think I must have seen at least a hundred thousand kongoni.

The giraffe is also a creature of most amusing actions. You are pretty certain to see a bunch of them as you come up the railway from the coast. They were the first wild animals I saw in British East Africa—a group of four or five quietly feeding within only a hundred yards of the thundering railway engine. They were in the protected area, however, and seemed to know that no harm would reach them there. Later on in the morning we saw other herds, but invariably at long range, sometimes teetering along the sky line or appearing and disappearing behind the flat-topped umbrella acacias.

[Drawing: They Run Loosely but Earnestly]

The giraffe is most laughable when in action. He first looks at you, then curls his tail over his back, and then lopes off with head and neck stuck out, and with body and legs slowly folding and unfolding in a most ungainly stride. It is hard to describe the gait of a giraffe to one who has never seen it, but any one would at once know without being told that a giraffe couldn't help being funny when running.

As a general thing it is difficult to approach a giraffe. With their keen eyes and great height they almost invariably see you before you see them, and that will be at seven or eight hundred yards' distance. From the moment they see you they never lose sight of you unless it is when they disappear behind a hill a mile or two away.

When seen on the sky-line a herd of giraffe will suggest a line of telegraph poles; when seen scattered along a hillside, partly sheltered under the trees, they blend into the mottled lights and shadows in such a way as to be almost invisible. I have been within two hundred yards of a motionless giraffe and, although looking directly at it, was not aware that it was a giraffe until it moved. It might easily have been mistaken for a bare fork of the tree, with the mottled shadows of the leaves cast upon it.

Along the Tana River I saw several herds of giraffe, perhaps fifty head in all, but it was on the great stretches of the scrub country that slopes down from Mount Elgon that I saw the great herds of them. One afternoon I saw twenty-nine together, big black males, beautifully marked tawny females, and lots of little ones that loomed up like lamp posts amidst a group of telegraph poles. Within two hours I saw two other herds of seven and nine each, and every day thereafter it was quite a common thing to run across groups of these strange-looking animals browsing among the trees.

One is not allowed to kill a giraffe except under a special license, which costs one hundred and fifty rupees, or fifty dollars. One of our party had a commission to secure a specimen for a collector and had been unsuccessful in getting it. That circumstance led to an amusing adventure that I had with a giant giraffe. One day, with my gunbearers, I had ridden out from camp in search of wild pigs. Ten minutes after leaving camp I drew rein hastily, for off to my left and in front a lone giraffe of great size and of splendid black color was slowly careening along toward me. If he continued in his course and did not see us he would pass within a hundred yards of me. So I hastily but quietly dismounted to try for a photograph as he passed.

A moment or two later he saw me for the first time and at once swung into a funny trot. I took the picture, and then the thought struck me, "Why not drive him into camp, where he could be secured by the one having a special license?" I jumped on my horse and galloped around him, but in a few moments struck a ravine so rocky that I had to walk my horse through the worst of it. By the time I had crossed the giraffe was some hundred yards ahead. Still farther ahead the prairie was burning and the long line of fire extended a mile or more across our front.

I thought this fire would swing the giraffe off, and so it became a race to reach the fire line first, in order to swing him in the right direction. The ground was deep with prairie grass, as dry as tinder, and scattered throughout were innumerable holes in the ground made by the ant-bears and wart-hogs. Any one of these holes was enough to throw a horse head over heels if he went into it. I had no gun, having left it with my gunbearer when I took the picture. So there was nothing to hinder me as we swept across the great plain.

We passed the camp half a mile away at a furious pace, the giraffe holding his own with the horse and keeping too far in front to be turned. By degrees we approached the prairie fire and the flames were leaping up three or four feet in a line many hundred yards long. The giraffe hesitated and then breasted the walls of fire; I didn't know whether my horse would take the salamander leap or not, and as we rushed down toward it I half-expected that he would stop suddenly and send me flying over his shoulders. But he never wavered. The excitement of the chase was upon him and he took the leap like an antelope. There was a moment of blinding smoke, a burning blast of air, and then we were galloping madly on across the blackened dust where the fire had already swept.

For two miles I galloped the giraffe, vainly endeavoring to swing him around, but once a swamp retarded me and another time a low hill shut the giraffe from view. When I passed the hill he had disappeared and could not be found again. There was no deep regret at having lost him, for I felt particularly grateful to him for having given me the most exhilarating and the most joyous ride I had in Africa.

The large male giraffes often appear solid black at a distance, for the yellow bands separating the splotches of black are so slender as to be invisible at even a short distance. The females are much lighter and usually look like the giraffes we see in the circuses at home.

Then there's the ubiquitous zebra, almost as numerous as the kongoni. You see vast herds of zebra at many places along the railway, and thereafter, as you roam about the level spots of East Africa, you are always running into herds of them. At first, the sight of a herd of zebras is a surprise, for you have been accustomed to seeing them in the small numbers found in captivity. It is a source of passing wonder that these rare animals should be roaming about the suburbs of towns in hundred lots. You decide that it would be a shame to shoot a zebra and determine not to join in this heartless slaughter.

Later on your sentiments will undergo a change. Everybody will tell you that the zebra is a fearful pest and must be exterminated if civilization and progress are to continue. The zebra is absolutely useless and efforts to domesticate him have been without good results. He tramps over the plains, breaks down fences, tears up the cultivated fields, and really fulfills no mission in life save that of supplying the lions with food. As long as the zebras stay the lions will be there, but the settlers say that the lions are even preferable to the zebras.

Under the old game ordinance expiring December fifteenth, 1909, a sportsman was allowed two zebras under his license; under the new one he is allowed twenty! That reveals the attitude of East Africa toward the jaunty little striped pony.

[Drawing: Zebra, Wildebeest and Gazelle (Wildebeest in Middle)]

In action the zebra is dependent upon his friend, the kongoni. When the latter signals him to run, he trots off and then turns to look. If the kongoni sends out a 4-11 alarm, the zebra will hike off in a Shetland-pony-like gallop and run some distance before stopping. They have no endurance and may be easily rounded up with a horse.

On the Athi Plains may be found the bones of scores of zebras, each spot marking where a lion has fed; and in the barb-wire fences of the settlers other scores of withered hides and whitened skulls mark where they have fallen before the grim march of civilization.

With each sportsman granted an allowance of twenty zebras, it may not be so long before the zebra will be forced to seek the sanctuary of the game reserves, which, happily, are large enough to insure his escape from extinction.

The zebra's chief peculiarity, aside from his beautiful markings, is a dog-like bark which is much more canine than equine in its sound. The zebra's chief charm is its colt, for there is nothing alive that is prettier or more graceful than a young zebra a few weeks old.

The only Grant's gazelles that I saw were those along the railway at Kapiti Plains and Athi Plains. This animal is graceful and beautiful, with a splendid sweep of horns. With them, and in much greater numbers, is the little "Tommy," or Thompson's gazelle, a graceful, buoyant, happy, bounding little antelope with an ever active tail flirting gaily in the sunshine. The Tommy is small, about twice as big as a fox terrier, and is of a fawn color. Along the lower parts of his sides is a broad white belt, along the middle of which runs a bold black stripe. The effect is strikingly handsome.

The impalla is much bigger than the Tommy, and he usually travels in large herds of fifty or more. It is no uncommon sight to see one buck with twenty or thirty females, and it is probably due to the fact that hunters try to get the male specimens as trophies that accounts for the vast preponderance of females in the various antelope herds. The impalla is seen along the railroad and in enormous numbers out along the Thika Thika and Tana Rivers. There are also many up in the Rift Valley and doubtless in other sections. From my own experience and observation they were most abundant on the Tana River.

[Drawing: Impalla Buck and Lady Friends]

The wildebeest, or gnu, is found on the Athi Plains and northward along the Athi River and the Thika Thika. One need never travel more than two hours' drive or walk from Nairobi to see wildebeest, but it's a different thing to get them. You would have to travel many hours, most likely, before you succeeded in bringing down a wildebeest.

My first shot in Africa was at a wildebeest at three hundred yards. The bullet struck, but so did the wildebeest. He struck out for northern Africa, and when last seen was still headed earnestly for the north pole. I am consoled in thinking that my shot must have inflicted more surprise than injury and so I hope he has now fully recovered, wilder and beastier than of yore.

My last shot in Africa, the day before leaving for the coast, was at a wildebeest an hour or so out of Nairobi. This time I missed entirely and repeatedly and the wildebeest remains unscathed to roam the broad plains of the Athi until some better or luckier shot passes his way. If I have anything on my conscience, it is certainly not the remorse of having reduced the supply of wildebeests.

[Drawing: Wildebeest With the White Man Only Eight Miles Away]

In our last few days' shooting out on the Athi Plains we saw perhaps fifty or seventy-five of these great bison-like animals. Their bodies and legs and tails are slender and graceful, like those of a horse, but the heads are heavy-featured, heavy-horned and heavy-bearded. They are wild and when they see you a mile or so away will start and run for the nearest vanishing point, usually arriving there long before you do.

The foregoing seven species of animals are the ones most commonly seen in East Africa. Perhaps something about some of the less common ones will have some instructive value.



CHAPTER XV

SOME NATURAL HISTORY IN WHICH IT IS REVEALED THAT A SING-SING WATERBUCK IS NOT A SINGING TOPI, AND THAT A TOPI IS NOT A SPECIES OF HEAD-DRESS

While reading an account of the trophies secured by Colonel Roosevelt on the Guas Ngishu Plateau, I was mystified by seeing the name of an animal I had never heard tell of—a singing topi. For a time I puzzled over this strange creature and finally evolved a satisfactory explanation of how the animal made its appearance in the despatches. Briefly, "there haint no sich animal," as the old farmer said when he saw his first dromedary in a circus; it was merely a mistake, due to the telegraphic abbreviations which foreign correspondents employ to save cable tolls.

What the correspondent meant to say was that the colonel had secured a sing-sing waterbuck and a topi. The word "waterbuck" was omitted because he assumed that everybody at home would know that a "sing-sing" was a species of waterbuck, wherein he was mistaken, for comparatively few people in America know what a sing-sing is, or, for that matter, what a topi is, or what a Uganda cob is. When his despatch had been transmitted through several operators on its way to the States the word "sing-sing" became "singing" and was supposed to be an adjective describing the topi. Hence the "singing topi."

The American paragraphers also had fun with the word "topi," for they thought a topi was a sun hat much worn in the hot countries. From this course of reasoning it was probably assumed that Colonel Roosevelt had shot some kind of a singing sun hat, which was certainly enough to cause comment.

There are two kinds of waterbuck that the East African hunter will find in the course of his travels, the common waterbuck which we saw in such numbers on the Tana River, and the Defassa, or "sing-sing" waterbuck, which is found in the higher altitudes up toward the Mau escarpment and Mount Elgon. Both of these varieties of waterbuck are beautiful animals, almost as large as a steer, and with great sweeping horns that often exceed twenty-five inches in length. In some instances the horns have been nearly three feet long, but the longest one that our party secured was only twenty-nine inches in length. As a trophy for a wall there are few heads in Africa more noble than that of the waterbuck.

In all our wanderings, during which we saw at least two thousand waterbuck, we found that the does outnumbered the males by ten to one and that usually in a herd of twenty there would be only one big male and one or two smaller ones. We also never saw them in water, but usually not a great distance from a marsh or stream. They were much shier than the hartebeest and zebra, and upon seeing our approach would be the first to run away. And by a curious chance the does seemed to know that it was the buck only that was in danger. They would often turn to watch us, while the buck himself would keep on running until he had put many hundreds of yards between himself and the threatened danger. Then, and then only, would he turn to watch, and it usually required careful stalking to get within gunshot of him again.

[Drawing: Waterbuck]

The doe is not pretty, being thickly and clumsily built, with a heavy, ungraceful neck, but the buck is like a painting by Landseer, noble, graceful, and beautifully marked with white and black on his dark gray coat.

We didn't kill many waterbuck, because there is no excuse for doing so except to secure the heads as trophies. The meat is so coarse and tough that even the porters, who seldom draw the line at eating anything their teeth can penetrate, do not care for waterbuck meat except under the stress of great hunger. They do like the skin, however, for it is of the waterbuck skin that their best sandals are made. Consequently, when a waterbuck is killed there is a fierce scramble among the porters to secure portions of the hide for this purpose.

The male waterbucks are savage fighters among themselves, and it was not uncommon to see big bulls with one horn gone or with both horns badly broken or marred as a result of the jealous struggle for dominance of a herd of does.

The topi is something like the hartebeest, but much more beautiful and much more rare. It is over four feet high, with skin of a dark reddish brown, with a silklike bluish gray gloss. On the shoulders and thighs are bluish black patches and the forehead and nose are blackish brown. The under parts are bright cinnamon. We ran across this beautiful antelope only on the Guas Ngishu Plateau, although it is found in one or two other districts in East Africa. In all our weeks of rambling on the high plains near Mount Elgon I think I saw several hundred head of topi, always shy and quick to take alarm.

[Photograph: A Uganda Cob]

[Photograph: By Courtesy of W.D. Boyce The Lordly Eland]

The meat is the most delicious of any of the large antelopes, and the skin, when properly cared for, is as soft as kid and as brilliant as watered silk. The head is a fine trophy on account of its rich coloring rather than because of its horns, which are not particularly graceful in curve or proportion, but which are wonderfully ridged.

[Drawing: Topi]

I am sure that if I were a beautiful topi with a skin like watered silk I should be deeply humiliated to be mistaken for a singing sun hat.

The topi's nearest relations are the sasseby, the tiang, and the korrigum. And now you know all about the topi. The game ordinance allows the sportsman to kill two topi, and the holder of a license will work hard to get his two, for they are splendid trophies.

The duiker is another little antelope that one meets frequently in the grassy places of East Africa. It is small, with dark complexion, and goes through the high grass in a way that strongly suggests the diving of a porpoise at sea. In fact, it gets its Dutch name for that reason, duiker bok, meaning "diving buck" in Dutch. There are a dozen or more different species of duikers, and they may be found scattered all over South and East Africa. They are difficult to shoot, for their diving habits make them a fleeting target; also their size, about twenty or thirty pounds in weight, makes them a small target.

Quite often the little duiker will hide in the grass until you have almost stepped on him, and then, if he considers discovery inevitable, he will spring away with his little huddled-up back rising and disappearing over the grass exactly as the porpoise does in the water. One day while we were beating some tall grass for lions, one of the porters stepped on a duiker, and its sharp horns, twisting suddenly, cut him on the ankle. The horns of the bucks are short and straight, from four to six inches long, but most often about four and a half inches.

It would take an expert mathematician to keep track of all the different kinds of duikers, for there's the crowned duiker, the yellow-backed duiker, the red duiker, Jentink's duiker, Abbott's duiker, the Ituri red duiker, the black-faced duiker, Alexander's duiker, the Ruddy duiker, Weyn's duiker, Johnston's duiker, Isaac's duiker, Harvey's duiker, Roberts' duiker, Leopold's duiker, the white-bellied duiker, the bay duiker, the chestnut duiker, the white-lipped duiker, Ogilby's duiker, Brooke's duiker, Peter's duiker, the red-flanked duiker, the banded duiker, Walker's duiker, the white-faced duiker, the black duiker, Maxwell's duiker, the black-rumped duiker, the Uganda duiker, the blue duiker, the Nyasa duiker, Heck's duiker, the Urori duiker, Erwin's duiker, and I suppose a lot more that the naturalists have not had time to catalogue.

[Drawing: Like a Popular Cemetery]

One would assume that with all these duikers there would hardly be room left in Africa for any other animals. But there is. For instance, there's the oribi and the dik-dik, to say nothing of the steinbuck and the klipspringer. The last named is a rock-jumping antelope, the others little grass antelopes, and all of them are as pretty and cute as animals can be. They are all small, the dik-dik being scarcely larger than a rabbit, and they are divided into as many subspecies as the duiker. A list of the different kinds of oribi would take up several lines of valuable space without conveying any illuminating intelligence to the lay mind.

We found thousands of oribi on the Guas Ngishu Plateau. You couldn't go half a mile in any direction without stirring up large family parties of them, and a landscape looked lonely unless one could see a few oribi bounding over the ant-hills or rising and falling as they leaped through the grass. When we first went into the plateau the grass was long and the oribi were for the most part fleeting streaks of yellow over the tops of it, but later when we came out the grass had been burned and the young, tender grass had spread a green carpet over the plains. Then the oribi were visible everywhere, usually in groups of four or six. Also the mamma oribis had given birth to bouncing baby oribis, and the sight of the little ones was most pleasing to the eyes.

[Drawing: Mamma and the Little One]

One day I was hot on the trail of a big waterbuck. The grass was deep at that part of the plateau and I was pushing rapidly through it. Suddenly one of my gunbearers, who was behind, called out and pointed to something in the grass. I hurried back, and there lay a little oribi only a few hours old and with big, wondering eyes that looked gravely up at me as I bent over it. It was plenty old enough to run and could easily have leaped away, but there it lay as tight as if nothing in the world could make it budge.

[Photograph: A Museum Specimen Must Be Preserved Entire]

[Photograph: The Eland Is the Largest of the African Antelopes]

The whole thing was as plain as could be. It was acting under instructions. I could almost hear the mother of the oribi tell the little one when it heard us coming to lay perfectly quiet and not to move the least bit until she came back. Then mamma hurried away to cover. The little oribi remembered his instructions and followed them out to the letter. Its mamma had told it not to move and it hadn't. We looked at it a little while and then said good-by and went our way. Some place near by an anxious mother oribi was watching us with her heart in her mouth, no doubt, and I'm sure that we had not gone many yards before she was back to see what had happened to the little one. It was quite an exciting adventure for the little oribi and quite incomprehensible to the mother that he had emerged from the peril so safely.

Another night I was going out to watch for lions. A bait had been placed near the tree where I was stationed and I had some hopes of seeing, if not killing, a lion. Night had already fallen, but there was still a trace of twilight in the air as I walked through the low scrub trees that lay between our camp and the tree, a mile and a half away. As I was walking along I heard a loud screaming to my left, and, looking across, I saw an oribi trying to beat off two jackals that had seized her young baby oribi. The jackals paid little attention to her and she was frantic in her efforts to save her little one.

It was too dark to see my sights plainly, but I shot at both of the jackals and sent them slinking away. I didn't go over to see if the little oribi was still alive, for I was certain that it had been killed. If it were dead I didn't want to see it and could not help either it or its mother; if it were alive its mother could get it safely away from the jackals. Since that moment I have hated jackals above all animals, not even excepting the odious hyena, and it is the chief regret of my hunting experience in East Africa that I did not kill those two cowardly vandals.

When the American reader picks up his paper and reads that Colonel Roosevelt has shot a Uganda cob, it is quite natural that he should not know what kind of a thing a cob is. If the colonel was out shooting "singing topis" or "singing sun hats," why, then, should he not also shoot corn cobs or cob pipes?

The cob, sometimes spelled kob, however, is only an antelope, although a graceful and handsome one. It is divided into several subspecies which live in different parts of the country. In one part will be found the large cob, almost the size of a waterbuck, which is called Mrs. Gray's cob, in honor of the wife of one of the former keepers in the London zoo; in another part is the species known as Vaughan's cob, and in still other parts are the dusky cob, the puku cob, the lechwi cob, the black lechwi, the Uganda cob and Buffon's cob.

It was Lady Constance Stewart-Richardson, the remarkable young English woman who is now dancing barefooted on the London music stage, who killed the record head of this last named species in Nigeria.

[Drawing: The Gregarious Cob]

It is of the Uganda cob only that I am able to write about from my own observation and experience. We found them only in one place, on the banks of the Nzoia River near Mount Elgon and the Uganda border. They never were more than four or five hundred yards from the river and could not be driven away. If they were startled at one point they would circle around and quickly get back to the river at some other point. They seemed to become homesick unless they could see the river near by. We found them only in a short stretch of five or six miles, although they doubtless are found all the way down the Nzoia River to Victoria Nyanza.

The cob is a curiously reliable animal. He likes one certain place that he is accustomed to, and nothing can drive him away. If you see him there one afternoon, you are reasonably certain of coming back the next afternoon and seeing him there again. Usually they graze in some sheltered meadow along the river's edge, and for recreation, so far as I could see, amuse themselves by seeing how many can get on top of one ant-hill at one time. Some of those ant-hills were literally bristling with cobs, one male to each five females, and in herds of from thirty to fifty.

In architecture, the cob is nearly three feet high at the shoulder, has beautiful, sweeping horns of a lyrate shape, has a white patch around each eye, a white belly, and a coat of yellow with black on the forelegs. There is no handsomer antelope in Africa than the Uganda cob, and because it is found in such a restricted and remote district is accountable for the fact that one seldom sees a cob head in a collection of horns. Comparatively few sportsmen have killed them, although they are not hard to kill if one reaches a district where they are found. The extreme beauty of this antelope led us to secure a group of them for the Field Museum.

The reedbuck is another of the smaller antelopes that carries a beautiful head, and, like nearly all of the antelopes, comes in many varieties, or subspecies.

[Photograph: A Wounded Wart Hog]

[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce A Grass Fire]

[Photograph: A Maribou Stork]

Our own relations with the reedbuck were limited to the high altitudes near the Mau escarpment and the broad, rolling, grassy downs along the numerous streams of the Guas Ngishu Plateau. This subspecies is called the Uganda race of the bohor reedbuck—sometimes abbreviated to "bohor." If you say you've shot a "bohor" you will be understood to mean a bohor reedbuck.

[Drawing: Reedbuck]

You will find the reedbuck in the tall reeds and bulrushes of the swamps and low places, where he finds good cover and good feeding; and also you will find him along the low, undulating, grass-covered hills near his water supply. In the heat of the day they are up in the tall grass, where they remain until along in the afternoon. They lie close, and, if discovered, will dart off with neck outstretched in such a way as to make it difficult to tell which is male and which female.

I have also seen the females use every means for protecting their lords and masters, standing up before them as they lie secreted in the grass and seeking to divert the attention of the hunter from the bucks to themselves. This desire to protect the male is common to many of the antelope family, and numberless times I have seen a band of does attempt to screen the male and shield him from harm.

The reedbuck never travels in large numbers, seldom more than two or three, or at most, five or six, being bunched together.

[Drawing: They Watched While the Buck Ran Away]

We had most of our reedbuck experiences while driving swamps for lions. On these occasions many reedbuck would be driven out of the cover of the reeds and rushes, and go crashing up the slopes leading away from the swamp. On one occasion a reedbuck lay so close that it did not stir until one of the beaters was almost upon it, when it sprang up, nearly knocking him over, and escaped behind the skirmish line of beaters. At other times, after the skirmish line apparently had traversed every foot of a swamp, reedbuck would spring up after the line had passed, thus illustrating how close they can lie and how effectually they can escape detection.

The reedbuck has short horns, usually between seven and ten inches in length, but one of our party secured one set of horns ten and a quarter inches long—an exceptionally fine head. The reedbuck's distinguishing characteristic is a sharp whistle, which he sounds shrilly when alarmed.

Another beautiful antelope that we met in small numbers on the Tana River and on the Guas Ngihsu Plateau was the bushbuck, found in thick scrub along rivers and also in the swamps and wet places. This animal belongs to a select little coterie of highly prized and rare antelopes, all of which have the distinguishing feature of a spiral horn.

The bushbuck is the smallest, and is found over nearly all of East Africa except upon the open plains and deserts. The females are of a dark chestnut color, and the males dark, almost black, with white markings on the neck and forelegs. A bushbuck with fifteen-inch horns is considered a fine prize, although horns of nineteen inches are on record.

The other members of the same family of spiral-horned antelopes are the kudu, the lesser kudu, the situtunga, the nyala, the bongo, and the lordly eland, king of all antelopes in size. The kudu is largely protected in East Africa, and in my shooting experience I was not in a district where he was to be found. The same was true with respect to the lesser kudu. The nyala is a South African species and is not to be found in British East Africa. The situtunga is a swamp dweller and is found chiefly in Uganda and, to my knowledge, infrequently in the East African protectorate.

The bongo is to the white sportsman what the north pole has been to explorers for centuries. In all records of game shooting there has been, until recently, only one white man who has killed a bongo, although the Wanderobo dwellers of the deep forests have killed many.

The bongo lives in the densest part of dense forests, can drive his way through the worst tangle of vegetation, and has a hearing and eyesight so keen that usually he sees the hunter long before the latter sees him. A hunt after bongo means long hours or even days of hunting the forests, with hardships of travel so disheartening that comparatively few white sportsmen attempt to go in after the elusive antelope. Kermit Roosevelt, however, with the good fortune that has followed his hunting adventures, succeeded in killing a cow and calf bongo after only a few hours of hunting with a Wanderobo.

A few days after I heard of this piece of good luck I was traveling across Victoria Nyanza on one of the little steamers that ply the lake. My cabin mate was a stoical Englishman who told me quite calmly that he had just killed a large bull bongo a few days before. He had been visiting Lord Delamere, and after a few hours in the forest had succeeded in doing what only two white men had done before.

The Englishman who had this good luck was George Grey, a brother of Sir Edward Grey, one of the present cabinet ministers of England.

[Drawing: Eland]

The eland is the largest of all antelopes, and we ran across a few on the Tana River and a few on the Guas Ngishu Plateau. Under the old game ordinance the sportsman was allowed to kill one bull eland; under the new ordinance he is allowed to kill none except in certain restricted districts and by special license. The eland is as big as a bull, with spiral horns and beautifully marked skin, and both the male and female carry horns. Those of the latter are usually larger and slenderer, but the skin of the female is not so handsomely marked as that of the male.

It is hard to get near an eland, but as the bull is nearly six feet high at the shoulders it is not especially difficult to hit him at three hundred yards or more. The one I shot was three hundred and sixty-five yards away and carried beautiful horns, twenty-four and one-quarter inches in length. The head of the great bull eland makes a wonderfully imposing trophy when placed in your baronial halls.

In the foregoing list of antelopes I have tried to tell a little about the types of that class of animal that I met in my African travels—in all, sixteen species of antelope. My chief excuse for doing it is to enable people at home to know the difference between a topi and a sun hat and between a sing-sing and a cob. The names of many of the African antelope family are strange and confusing, so that it is little wonder that they mystify people in America. There are a hundred or more kinds, and no one can hope to know them unless he makes a business of it.

I have not seen the grysbok, or the suni, or the dibitag, or the lechwi, or the aoul, or the gerenuk, or the blaauwbok, or the chevrotain, or lots of others, but who in the world could guess what they were or what they looked like, judging only from the names?



CHAPTER XVI

IN THE TALL GRASS OF THE MOUNT ELGON COUNTRY. A NARROW ESCAPE FROM A LONG-HORNED RHINO. A THANKSGIVING DINNER AND A VISIT TO A NATIVE VILLAGE

Mount Elgon is one of the four great mountains of Africa. You can find it on the map of the dark continent, standing all alone, just a little bit north of Victoria Nyanza, and surrounded by names that one has never heard of before.

The mountain is distinctly out of the picture-post-card belt—in fact, the only belt that one will find around Elgon is the timber belt that encircles the mountain, and perhaps also a few that the local residents wear on Sundays and national holidays.

The function of the latter class of belt is to keep up a gay appearance. It is worn for looks, not warmth.

The traveler who goes to Mount Elgon will not be distracted by sounds of civilization, except such as he takes with him. He will travel for days without seeing a sign of human life beyond his own following. The country west of the Nzoia River is uninhabited and is abandoned to the elephant and the giraffe and other animals that care not for the madding crowd. Thomas Cook and Son have not yet penetrated that district with schedules and time cards and luggage labels; so if your purpose in traveling is to get a grand assortment of stickers on your trunks and hand-bags, it is useless to include Mount Elgon in your itinerary.

There will be days of marching through high grass, often so deep as almost to bury yourself and your horse; hours of delay at marshy rivers densely choked with a tangle of riotous vegetation, and much groping about in a trackless waste for a suitable course to follow.

Owing to intertribal warfare the Elgon district has been closed for some time and it has only been during the last year or so that hunting parties have again been allowed to enter. Since that time a number of parties have been in, the Duke of Alba among the first, and later Doctor Rainsford, Frederick Selous and, Mr. McMillan, Captain Ashton, the Duke of Penaranda, Mr. Roosevelt, and a few others. Colonel Roosevelt went only as far as the Nzoia River, but most of the others crossed and swung up along the northeastern slopes of the mountain where elephants are most frequently found.

Our party decided to take the southern slope, notwithstanding we were warned that we might find the natives troublesome and treacherous. We were also warned that we should be going through an untraveled district where there were no trails and where native guides could not be secured.

[Photograph: A Native Granary]

[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. A Chair Is a Sure Sign of Rank]

Nevertheless we started and brilliantly blundered into some most diverting adventures.

The first day's march after crossing the Nzoia River was through scrub country and what we considered high grass. The next day we struck real high grass! It was so deep that we had to burrow through it. Only the helmets of those on horseback marked where the caravan was passing. The long line of porters carrying their burdens were buried from view. It was a terrible place to meet a rhino and perhaps for that very reason we promptly proceeded to meet one.

We were riding ahead, followed by the cook and the tent boys, and behind them was the long string of a hundred or more porters, askaris, totos, and so forth. The end of the line was some hundred yards behind the head. Suddenly there was a wild cry of "faru!" (rhino).

It was disconcerting, but after one or two hurried and flurried moments we got our heavy batteries in readiness and prepared to sell his life as cheaply as possible. But no rhino came. The grass was too deep to have seen him if he had come, but we thought it was well to have a reception committee ready just the same.

Then the rear ranks began to telescope into the front ranks. They came forward two or three jumps at a time. They were visibly perturbed, but presently they recovered enough to give expert testimony.

A huge rhino had been in the grass by the trail as we came along and had waited until the whole line had passed. Then he jumped into the trail and charged furiously after the porters. The latter, severally, collectively, and frantically, leaped for their lives, dropping packs and uttering hurried appeals to Allah.

[Drawing: He Estimated the Length at Four Feet]

After scattering a few dozen of the rank and file from his line of march the rhino veered off and plunged out of sight in the tall grass. One of the porters whose veracity is unquestioned by those who don't know him estimated the forward horn to be four feet long. He said the rhino charged earnestly and with hostile intent.

A rhino charging a safari is always a pleasing diversion—pleasing after it's all over and diverting while it lasts. The cry of "faru" is a good deal like "car coming" at an automobile race. Instantly everybody is all attention, with the attention equally divided between the rhino and the nearest tree. If there is no tree the interest in the rhino becomes more acute.

The thought of being impaled en brochette on the horn of a rhino is one of the least attractive forms of mental exertion that I know of. It is a close second to the thought of being stepped on by a herd of elephants marching single file.

Well, we survived the charge of the heavy brigade, and then moved onward, ever and anon casting an alert glance at the deep clumps of thicket along the way. Fortunately no more rhinos appeared and the next thing we struck was Thanksgiving Day.

The proper way to celebrate that deservedly popular holiday is not by sitting in tall grass with a can of beans and a bottle of pickles in the foreground. This is said with all respect to the manufacturers of beans and pickles who may advertise in the papers.

For a time, however, beans and pickles seemed to be the nearest outlook for us, but after a while the cook, whose nerves had been shaken by the impetuous advance of the rhino, arose to the demands of the occasion and set up a table upon which soon appeared some hot tea, some bread and honey, some beans and deviled ham, and a few knickknacks in the line of jam and cheese. That was luncheon, and we resolved to do better for dinner.

We told the cook all about Thanksgiving Day and what its chief purpose was. We also told him of the beautiful significance of the occasion, what happy thoughts it inspired, and how much sentiment was attached to it. Then we told him to get busy. We were in a Thanksgiving mood, being grateful that we were not riding around on the bowsprit of the rhino, and also because our relatives and friends at home were well at last reports, two months old.

True, our guide, who had never been over the trail before and who was trying to guess the way by instinct, had got us hopelessly becalmed in a sea of high grass so that we didn't know where we were. But we knew what we were. We were hungry!

In the meantime we planned and carried into brilliant execution a grouse hunt. There were lots of grouse in the country through which we had come and all day long coveys of them had been whirring away from our advancing outposts. It seemed a simple thing to go out and get a few for our Thanksgiving dinner, so we gave orders to make camp and consecrated the afternoon to a grouse quest.

I'll never forget what a formidable looking party it was. When we had spread out to comb the grass by the river side we looked like a skirmish line of an army. There were four of us, supported by seventeen gunbearers and porters. Our battery consisted of four elephant guns, four heavy rifles, three light rifles, and four shotguns. The latter were for grouse and the others were for incidental big game which one must always be prepared for, whether one goes out to shoot grouse or take snapshots with one's camera.

[Drawing: The Grouse Hunt]

We spread out and beat two miles of perfect cover. Then we beat it back again and finally, after all our Herculean efforts, one lonely bird flew up and was knocked over. That was the astounding total of our slaughter and when the army marched back into camp with its one little grouse the effect was laughable in the extreme. I took a photograph of the entire group and by good luck the grouse is faintly seen suspended in the middle.

That night, with the camp-fires burning and with our tents almost buried in the tall grass, we celebrated Thanksgiving in a way that must have made old Lucullus fidget in his mausoleum. The wealth of the plains was compelled to yield tribute to our table; eland, grouse and Uganda cob appeared and disappeared as if by magic; the vast storehouses of Europe and America poured their treasures upon our groaning board, and one by one we safely put away succulent lengths of asparagus, cakes and chocolate, wine and olives, pickles and honey, nuts and cheese, plum pudding and coffee, and soup and salad, all in their proper sequence and in sufficient quantities to go round and round.

A soft moon shone down from the velvet sky and the trees of the river bed were bathed in white moonlight as we sat by the great camp-fire and smoked and talked and dreamed of the folk at home.

It was an unusual occasion, one that called for a special dispensation in the way of late hours, so it was almost nine when we turned in and dreamed of armies of rhinos playing battledore and shuttlecock with our bulging forms. It was a great dinner, and to be on the safe side we complimented the cook before we went to bed.

[Photograph: A Group of Ketosh Ladies]

[Photograph: Nearly Buried in Grass]

[Photograph: Building a Grass House]

A day or two later, after blindly floundering about in a sea of waving grass for miles and miles, and getting more and more hopelessly lost, we stumbled upon signs of human habitation. The first sign was a great stretch of valley in which a number of smoke columns were ascending. Where there's smoke there's folk, we thought, patting ourselves on the back for cleverness. We knew we were approaching fresh eggs and chickens.

A little later we came upon another sign of human agitation. Over a rise in a hill we saw a large spear, and in a few minutes we overhauled a native guarding a herd of cattle. He carried a spear and a shield, and over his shoulders he wore a loose dressing sack that hung down nearly to his armpits. Civilization had touched him lightly, in fact it had barely waved at him as it brushed by.

We tried him with several languages—Swahili, Kikuyu, the language of flowers, American, Masai, and the sign language, none of which he was conversant with. Then we tried a relay system of dialects which established a vague, syncopated kind of intellectual contact. One of our porters spoke Kavirondo, so he held converse with the far from handsome stranger, translated it into Swahili, and this was retranslated into English for our benefit.

The stranger was a Ketosh. We didn't know what a Ketosh was, but it sounded more like something in the imperative mood than anything ethnological. It developed later in the day, however, that a Ketosh is a member of the tribe of that name, and their habitat is on the southern slopes of Elgon.

[Drawing: Lady and Gentleman Ketosh]

The Ketoshites, or Ketoshians, as the case may be, are a cattle- and sheep-raising tribe. In other words, a tribe in which the women do all the manual labor while the men folk sit on a hillside with a shield and spear and watch the herds partake of nourishment. They are the standing army.

[Drawing: The Standing Army Sat Around All Day]

We followed the man with the spear to a little village hard by. The village, like all the numerous other ones that we came to in the next few days, was inclosed in a zareba, or wall of tangled thorn branches that encircled the village. Within the wall were a number of low houses, six feet high, built of mud and wattle; and within the houses, spilling over plentifully, were large numbers of children and babies and a few women. A gateway of tangled boughs led into the inclosure, while in one part of the village were the curious woven wickerwork granaries in which the community store of kaffir corn is kept. There were no street signs on the lamp posts, probably because there were no streets and no lamp posts.

In the first village all the men were away, evidently waiting to see whether our visit was a hostile or a peaceful one.

We soon established ourselves on a peace footing and after that the warriors began to appear out of the tall grass in large numbers from all points of the compass. They all carried spears and shields, neither of which they would sell for love or money. At least they wouldn't for money. We resolved not to try the other unless the worst came to the worst and we had to fall back on it as a last desperate measure. I suppose they didn't know how soon they might need their weapons, and we heard that the sultan had just sent out a positive order forbidding them to sell their means of defense.

[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. The Ketosh Are Gracefully Nonchalant]

[Photograph: Little Shelters of Mud and Sticks]

[Photograph: A Family Party]

The first procedure when entering a district where the natives may be unfriendly is to send out for the chief, or sultan, as he is known in Africa. There is always a sultan to preside over the destinies of his tribe and to take any money that happens along. So we sent for the sultan, who was off in a neighboring village, so they said. After a long wait, during which we pitched our camp and offered a golden reward for eggs and chickens, a sultan drifted in.

[Drawing: Slowly Being Cremated]

We knew he was sultan because he carried a chair—an unfailing sign of rank among a nation of expert sitters. He also wore an old woolen dressing gown that had worked its way from civilization many years before. It was built for arctic regions, but the sultan of all the Ketoshians wore it right straight through the ardent hours when the sun kisses one with the fiery passion of a mustard plaster. He was slowly being cremated and it was fascinating to watch him sizzle.

After the sultan came and seated himself with his retinue of spearmen (dressed in the altogether save for the futile cloth around their shoulders) grouped around him we took our seats and began a shauri.

Shauri (rhyming with Bow'ry) is a native word meaning a powwow or a parley and is a word that works overtime. Everything that you do in Africa has to be preceded by a shauri. You have a shauri if you ask a native which road to take. Other natives hurry up, and then you stand around and talk about it for an hour or so.

If you want to buy a chicken or a cluster of eggs there must first be a prolonged shauri with much interchange of views and conversation and aerated persiflage. The native loves his shauri, and if he asks you a certain price for a chicken and you give the price without haggling he is greatly disappointed. In fact I have often seen them offer an article for a certain price and then refuse to accept the money if it is at once tendered. Later the native will accept much less if the shauri goes with it.

Well, we had shauris to burn for a couple of days. As soon as the first sultan had departed with presents and words of good cheer there was a flock of other sultans that hurried in to receive presents and to assist in shauris. They came from far and near, and they all carried chairs, thus proving that they were not impostors; and the worst of it was that we couldn't find out exactly which was the real, most exalted sultan of the bunch. Hence we had to give presents to many who perhaps were only amateur or 'prentice sultans, sultans whose domains were only a little village of half a dozen families.

[Drawing: The Camp Was Clogged with Sultans]

For two days our camp was clogged with shauris and sultans sitting around. We couldn't step out of our tents without stumbling over a sultan or two. When we would take our baths in our tents there would be sultans and warriors peeping in modestly from all sides. There was not a secret of our inner life that remained intact. Even the ladies, from the banana-bellied little girls of five and six up to the leathery-limbed old matrons, inclusive, were not above a feminine curiosity in things which doubtless interested them, but didn't concern them. The standing army of the Ketoshians sat around all day wearing out the grass and being frequently stumbled over.

If we asked a sultan if there were any elephants in the neighborhood it meant at least fifteen minutes of loose conversation through a relay of interpreters, with the final answer boiled down to a "no" in English. For a language that has only a few words like shauri, backsheesh, apana, and chukula the native lingo is a most elastic one.

There were two or three things that we had come to Mount Elgon for and about which we desired information. The first was "elephants," and we found, after hours of talk, that there was none in the vicinity. Secondly, we wanted to get food for our men, and thirdly, we wanted guides to take us up to the ancient cave-dwellings in the mountain and more guides to take us up to the top of the mountain itself.

It seemed almost impossible to get satisfactory information upon either of the last two subjects. The natives didn't want to part with their grain, while for their cattle they asked outrageous prices. We were almost tempted to boycott them by stopping eating meat for two months. They also seemed reluctant to let us have guides to take us up to the caves and none of them seemed to know the trails that led up into the forests and the heights of the mountain. It was evident that only a few ever had been up the mountain upon the slopes of which they had spent their lives.

[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. At the Entrance of the Great Cave]

[Photograph: There Were Granaries in the Cave]

[Photograph: In One of the Elgon Caves]

We began to think that they wanted us to stay in their village just so they could have the pleasure of their daily shauris.

Finally one sultan promised to get us guides and accepted a generous present on the strength of it; but when the time came he failed to produce them. It was at precisely this point, to be strictly accurate, that we abandoned the polite phraseology of the court and told him with many exclamation points that he would have to guide us himself or we would take steps to dethrone him. Of course, all of this had to be strained through two interpreters, but even then I think he caught the gist of it. He said that he himself would guide us to the nearest and largest cave.

We told him that we would be ready to start immediately after luncheon. Only ourselves and a few men to carry cameras and guns were to constitute our party, the rest of the safari remaining in camp, from which certain embassies were sent out to buy grain for the porters' food.

Soon after lunch the sultan arrived and we marched away. Little by little groups of his janissaries, mamelukes, and other members of his official entourage joined us and by the time we reached the slope leading up to the great cave-dwelling we had quite an imposing procession. Most of the natives were armed with spears and knives, and some of them had painted their bodies with red dirt and mutton grease, and when this coating had partly dried they had traced with their fingers many designs in stripes down their arms and legs. Some were a light mauve in color, but most were of a rich chocolate brown. The effect of these designs was rather pretty, but the dripping red oil from their hair was not pretty and on a hot day exuded a strong, overpowering odor.

Above us, nearly a thousand feet from where we stood, boldly visible in the face of the great cliff, was the broad ledge and black opening of the cave. A short distance to the right of it was a bright waterfall, looking like a ribbon, but in reality quite broad and dropping in three stages several hundred feet. An incline of forty-five degrees led up to the cave, while up beyond that was the great stratum of solid rock that extends for miles along the south of Mount Elgon and which is honey-combed with hundreds of prehistoric cave-dwellings. A determined foe stationed at the mouth of any one of the caves could defend it against an enormous attacking force.

It was nearly an hour's climb to the ledge where the cave entrance appeared. Several naked men armed with spears stood upon the rocks, outlined in bold and striking relief against the velvety blackness of the cave entrance. They appeared curious but not unfriendly as we breathlessly panted our way on to the ledge where they stood waiting, spears in hand.

[Drawing: Like a Great Stage]

Our first impression was one of gasping wonderment. We seemed to stand upon a great stage of an immensity which words can not describe. It was a stage proportioned for giants. The rock prosscenium arched above us seventy feet and the stage was nearly two hundred feet wide. As an audience chamber one could look out over twenty-five thousand square miles of Central Africa.

The dimensions and the imposing magnitude of the place almost took one's breath away. Two regiments of soldiers could have marched upon that stage. There was even room for a squadron of cavalry to manoeuver. Upon the well-beaten floor were the tracks of cattle, showing that from time immemorial the cave people had driven in their herds for shelter or for safety in times of tribal warfare; and in places the solid rock was worn smooth and deep by the bare feet of centuries of naked people.

And yet, in spite of the titanic proportions of the cave, there was something quite homelike about it. It almost suggested a prosperous farm-yard. There were chickens walking about, with little chickens trotting alongside. There were wickerwork graneries standing here and there, while around the inner edge of the great entrance hall were little mud and stick woven houses five feet high, which gave the effect of a small village street.

From the front of the stage back to the row of little houses was a distance of about one hundred feet. By stooping down one could enter one of the little openings, to be surprised to find himself in another little farm-yard where cattle had been housed and where there were many evidences of the thrift and industry of the occupants. Gourds of milk were present in generous numbers, and as one's eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness all sorts of domestic paraphernalia were revealed.

Little separate inclosures were fenced off for human tenantry, and the glow of embers gave a pleasant, homelike look to the place. Cavern after cavern extended back into the cliff, a network of them, but how far they went would be hard to tell. Perhaps the cave in all its subterranean ramifications has never been entirely explored.

We wandered back through some of the caverns, sometimes stooping to get through and sometimes standing beneath domes thirty and forty feet high. And always that queer, mystical light, with exaggerated shadows and sometimes black darkness ahead, where could be heard the drip, drip, drip of water in invisible lakes. In time of siege the holders of this cave, with granaries filled and with herds of cattle and lakes of water, could hold the place for ever.

The tenants of the place soon became pleasant and hospitable. Perhaps many of them had never seen white people before, but they sat down and watched us with friendly interest. There were many babies and they were all bright-eyed and rugged looking.

While we were there the cattle were out on the open hills grazing, but in the evening the long herds are driven up to their airy stronghold and made snug for the night. And who knows but that a great herd of cattle would add much to the heat of the cave and make its nearly naked tenants forget that they were high on the chilly slopes of one of Africa's greatest mountains?

They certainly do not dress warm. Around their arms and legs are all sorts of brass and nickel wire wound in scores of circles. Chains of wire and necklaces of beads encircle the women's throats and elephant ivory armlets are often clasped about the arms so tight that it would seem that the natural circulation would be hopelessly retarded. But they must be healthy, these people who go about with only a thin sheet of dyed cotton thrown about them, while we northerners shivered with sweaters and warm woolen things about us.

It's all a case of getting used to it, just as it is a case of getting used to seeing people frankly and unconsciously naked, as many of these people are. But after a while one even gets used to seeing them so and regards their nakedness as one would regard the nakedness of animals.



CHAPTER XVII

UP AND DOWN THE MOUNTAIN SIDE FROM THE KETOSH VILLAGE TO THE GREAT CAVE OF BATS. A DRAMATIC EPISODE WITH THE FINDING OF A BLACK BABY AS A CLIMAX

For days we had heard of wonderful places higher up in the mountain. The information had been so vague and uncertain we hardly knew whether to credit the reports or simply put them down as native folk lore or superstition. One night we interviewed Askar, one of the Somali gunbearers.

He said he had been up the mountain a year or two before with a Frenchman who wanted to see the mysterious natural wonders of Mount Elgon. The Frenchman had to threaten to kill his native guides before they would consent to lead him up in the cold heights of the mountain to show him the places that filled the native imagination with such fear and superstitious dread.

There was one place, Askar said, where the water boiled out of the ground far, far up in the mountain heights, and any native who looked at it fell dead. Askar said he went up and looked at it through the glasses, and then ran away.

All this queer information came out at one of our evening camp-fire shauris. The great central camp-fire of a safari is usually in front of the tents of the msungu, or white people, and around it in the evening the msungu discuss the adventures of the day and the plans for the morrow. Each night Abdi, the neapara or head-man, comes up to get his instructions for the next morning, and soon afterward Abdullah, the cook, appears and waits for his orders for the breakfast hour.

Abdullah is the color of night, and no one ever sees him approach or go away. He simply appears and often stands only a few feet away before any one is aware of his presence. And even after he speaks, one sees only a row of white teeth looming up five feet above the ground. If any important matters are to be adjusted it is usually at the camp-fire that the things are settled. If punishment is to be meted out to a transgressor, it is there that the trial is held and judgment rendered.

Well, on, this night as we sat talking by the camp-fire, Abdi, our head-man, suddenly appeared and squatted down. Soon after up came Askar, who also squatted down, and we knew that we were in for some unusual sort of a shauri. It was then that Askar told of the strange mystery of the mountain.

[Photograph: Curious as to Our Home Life]

[Photograph: On the Rim of the Crater]

[Photograph: A Birthday Dinner]

"Askar says," spoke Abdi, interpreting Askar's imperfect English, "that up in the mountain there is a big door and a great cave. He went up with a Frenchman, and the guides refused to go. Then the Frenchman threatened to kill them if they would not go. They were frightened, because all the natives die who go to the big door and see the boiling fountain through the door. Askar say all the natives ran away, but the Frenchman go on."

"Did Askar see the door?"

"Askar says he see the door and he see the fountain through some glasses. Then he ran away."

[Drawing: Camp in the Forest]

"Can Askar take us up to the cave and the big door?"

There was then a long discussion in Somali between Askar and Abdi, which finally was briefly rendered into English. Askar would show us the way.

We then sent for the sultan of the Ketosh tribe and interviewed him. He was singularly reticent about the subject, and both he and the other natives called in used all their crude intelligence to discourage any attempt to go up into those districts that were so full of strange, forbidding influences. They said there were no trails, and when we said we would go anyway, they said there was a trail, but that it was so tangled with undergrowth and vines that one had to creep through it, like an animal. We still said we would go, and told the sultan to get us guides, for which we would pay well.

All this happened while we were in the Ketosh village that lies on the slope of the mountain just beneath the great rock wall, a thousand feet high, whose upper rim is honeycombed with the ancient caves of the aborigines. For days we had stopped there, endeavoring to get food and guides, and for days the sultan and his people had placed every obstacle in the way of our ascending higher the mysterious and comparatively unknown mountain. The great rock escarpment shut off the view of the peaks beyond, but we felt that if once we could scale the first precipitous slope we would find traveling much easier on the gentle slope of the mountain.

At last, after persuasion, threats, money, and pleading had in turn been tried, the sultan brought his son and said that his son would guide us.

The son was the craftiest and crookedest looking native I had seen in Africa. After one look at him, you were filled with such distrust and suspicion that you would hardly believe him if he said he thought it was going to rain, or that crops were looking up.

With this man as a guide, and with four more who were tempted by the bright red blankets we gave, our caravan started on one of the strangest and perhaps most foolhardy trips that presumably sane people ever made. In the first place, probably fewer than half a dozen white men had ever ascended Mount Elgon. There were no adequate maps of the region, and the one we had was woefully inaccurate. It was made as if from telegraphic description, and the only thing in which it proved trustworthy was that there was a mountain there and that it was about fourteen thousand two hundred feet high, and that the line separating British East Africa from Uganda ran through the crater at the top.

Our delay at the Ketosh village had greatly reduced our food supplies for the porters, and there was only enough left to last six days. In that time we should have to ascend the mountain and descend to some place where food supplies could be procured. It all looked quite quixotic. We bought two bullocks, a sheep, and a goat, and, with our guides ahead, our entire safari of over a hundred souls turned toward the grim heights that shot up before us.

[Drawing: Up to the Rim of the Crater]

The trail for the first thousand feet of ascent was steep and hard to climb. The rocks high above us were specked with natives, who gazed down in wonder at the strange spectacle. These were the cave-dwellers. After an hour or more we reached the crest of the rim and then continued through elephant grass ten feet high, then dense forest, and finally through miles of clean, cool, shadowy bamboos—always steadily climbing. The trail was fairly good and our progress was encouraging.

[Photograph: In the Belt of Bamboo]

[Photograph: Giant Cactus Growth In the Crater]

[Photograph: Up Twelve Thousand Feet in the Crater]

There were many elephant pits in the bamboo forest, but they were all ancient ones, half-filled with decayed leaves and obviously unused for half a century or more. From some of them fairly large-sized trees had grown. Sometimes in the midst of these great, silent, light-green forests we came upon giant trees, tangled and gnarled, with trunks twenty or thirty feet in circumference. In vain we looked for the impassable trail the natives had warned us to expect.

Late in the afternoon we came to a wonderful cave, over the mouth of which a wonderful fan-shaped waterfall dropped seventy feet or more. My aneroid barometer indicated an elevation of eighty-two hundred feet, showing that we had climbed twenty-seven hundred feet since morning. We found a little clearing in the bamboo forest and pitched our tents on ground that sloped down like the roof of a house. The clearing was barely fifty yards long, yet our twenty or more tents were pitched, our horses tethered in the middle, and the camp-fires crackled merrily as the chill air of night came down upon us. From the forest came the multitude of sounds that told of strange birds and animals that were out on their nocturnal hunt for food.

Early in the morning the safari was sent on with the guides while we remained to explore the cave. It was an immense cavern, with an entrance hall, or foyer, about thirty feet high and a hundred feet in length. Along the inner edge were the crumbling remains of little mud and wattle huts that had been occupied by people a long time before. Beyond this great entrance hall were passages that led into other vast, echoing caverns with domes like those of a cathedral.

Countless thousands of bats darted about us as our voices broke the silence of ages, and in places the deposits of bats were two or three feet deep. It staggered one's senses to think how long these creatures had dwelt within the labyrinth of caverns and passageways.

We explored the cave for a quarter of a mile or so, stumbling, stooping, climbing, and sliding down precipitous slopes. Far off in the darkness sounded the steady drip, drip, drip of water, and several times our progress was stopped by black lakes into which a tossed stone would tell of depths that might be almost bottomless. We fired our shotguns and the loosened dirt and rocks and the thunder of thousands of bats' wings were enough to terrify the senses.

There is no telling how many centuries or ages these caverns have stood as they stand to-day. Doubtless the wild tribes of the mountain have occupied them for thousands of years, and doubtless a thousand years from now the descendants of these tribes of people and bats will still be there in the cisternlike caverns with the broad fan of sparkling water spreading like a beautiful curtain across the great archway of an entrance.

That night, after hours of climbing through great forests and across grassy slopes gay with countless varieties of beautiful and strange flowers, we pitched our camp on a wind-swept height eleven thousand feet up. The peaks of the mountain rose high above us only a mile or so farther on.

When the night fell the cold was intense, and we huddled about the camp-fire for warmth. Around each of the porters' camp-fires the humped-up natives crouched and dreamed of the warm valleys far below in the darkness. I suppose the cold made them irritable, for just as we were preparing to turn in there suddenly came a succession of screams from one of the groups—screams of a boy in mortal terror. The sounds breaking out so unexpectedly in the silent night were enough to freeze the blood in one's veins. I never heard such frantic screams—like those that might come from a torture-chamber.

One of the porters had become infuriated by one of the totos—small boys who go along to help the porters—and had started in to beat him. The boy was probably more frightened than hurt, but the matter was one demanding instant punitive action. So Abdi immediately inflicted it in a most satisfying manner.

Once more the silence of the mountain fell upon the camp, but it was hours before the shock to one's senses could be forgotten. I never before, nor never again expect to hear screams more harrowing or terrifying.

The next day a Martian sitting upon his planet with a powerful glass might have seen the amazing sight of three horses, one mule, two bullocks, a goat, and a sheep, preceded and followed by over a hundred human beings, painfully creep over the rim of the crater and breathlessly pause before the great panorama of Africa that lay stretched out for hundreds of miles on all sides. It was as though an army had ascended Mont Blanc, and thus Hannibal crossing the Alps was repeated on a small scale.

Leaving our horses on the rim of the crater, a few of us climbed the highest peak, fourteen thousand three hundred and seventy-five feet high, as registered by my aneroid barometer, and stood where very few had stood before. Even the official height of the mountain, as given on the maps, was found to be inaccurate, and illustrated how vaguely the geographers knew the mountain.

That night we camped in the crater, twelve thousand feet up, and washed in a boiling sulphur spring that sprang from the rocks on the Uganda side. Perhaps this was the boiling fountain the superstitious natives feared, for it was the only one we saw. And perhaps the great gorge through which the river Turkwel, or Suam, flowed on its long journey north was the door that Askar had told us about. It was the only door we saw, but Askar said the door he meant was away off somewhere else, and he was so vague and confused in his bearings that we felt his information was unreliable.

The crater of Mount Elgon has long since lost any resemblance to a volcanic crater. It is a great valley, or bowl, surrounded by a lofty rim that in reality is a considerable chain of mountains. The bowl is two or three miles long and as much wide, with tall grass growing on the small hills inside and thousands upon thousands of curious cactus-like trees. Several mountain streams tumble down from the gorges between the peaks and, uniting, flow out of the big gap in one stream, the river Turkwel, which separates Uganda from British East Africa.