y. Before us were wide rounded hills
covered with a scattered small growth that in general appearance
resembled scrub oak. It sloped away gently until it was lost in mists.
Later, when these cleared, we saw distant blue mountains across a
tremendous shallow basin. We were nearly on a level with the summit of
Suswa itself, nor did we again drop much below that altitude. After
five or six miles we overtook the wagon outspanned. The projected
all-night journey had again been frustrated by the lions. These beasts
had proved so bold and menacing that finally the team had been forced to
stop in sheer self-defence. However, the day was cool and overcast, so
nothing was lost.

After topping the Mau we saw a few gazelle, zebra, and hartebeeste, but
soon plunged into a bush country quite destitute of game. We were
paralleling the highest ridge of the escarpment, and so alternated
between the crossing of canons and the travelling along broad ridges
between them. In lack of other amusement for a long time I rode with the
wagon. The country was very rough and rocky. Everybody was excited to
the point of frenzy, except the wagon. It had a certain Dutch stolidity
in its manner of calmly and bumpily surmounting such portions of the
landscape as happened in its way.

After a very long, tiresome march we camped above a little stream.
Barring our lucky rain this would have been the first water since
leaving the Kedong River. Here were hundreds of big blue pigeons
swooping in to their evening drink.

For two days more we repeated this sort of travel, but always with good
camps at fair-sized streams. Gradually we slanted away from the main
ridge, though we still continued cross-cutting the swells and ravines
thrown off its flanks. Only the ravines hour by hour became shallower,
and the swells lower and broader. On their tops the scrub sometimes gave
way to openings of short grass. On these fed a few gazelle of both
sorts, and an occasional zebra or so. We saw also four topi, a beast
about the size of our wapiti, built on the general specifications of a
hartebeeste, but with the most beautiful iridescent plum-coloured coat.
This quartette was very wild. I made three separate stalks on them, but
the best I could do was 360 paces, at which range I missed.

Finally we surmounted the last low swell to look down a wide and sloping
plain to the depression in which flowed the principal river of these
parts, the Southern Guaso Nyero. Beyond it s