rarely did we enjoy a few moments of open travel. Most of
the time the thorns caught at us. In the mountain passes were sometimes
broad trails of game or of the Masai cattle. The country was harsh and
dry and beautiful with the grays and dull greens of arid-land brush, or
with the soft atmospheric tints of arid-land distances. Game was fairly
common, but rather difficult to find. There were many buffalo, a very
few zebra, leopards, hyenas, plenty of impalla, some sing-sing, a few
eland, abundant wart-hog, Thompson's gazelle, and duiker. We never
lacked for meat when we dared shoot it, but we were after nobler game.
The sheep given us by Naiokotuku followed along under charge of the
syces.

When we should run quite out of meat, we intended to eat them. We
delayed too long, however. One evening the fool boy tied them to a thorn
bush; one of them pulled back, the thorns bit, and both broke loose and
departed into the darkness. Of course everybody pursued, but we could
not recapture them. Ten minutes later the hyenas broke into the most
unholy laughter. We could not blame them; the joke was certainly on us.

In passing, the cachinnations of the laughing hyena are rather a series
of high-voiced self-conscious titters than laughter. They sound like the
stage idea of a lot of silly and rather embarrassed old maids who have
been accused by some rude man of "taking notice." This call is rarely
used; indeed, I never heard it but the once. The usual note is a sort of
moaning howl, impossible to describe, but easy to recognize.

Thus we penetrated gradually deeper and deeper into this wild country;
through low mountains, over bush-clad plains, into thorn jungles, down
wide valleys, over hill-divided plateaus. Late in the afternoon we would
make camp. Sometimes we had good water; more often not. In the evening
the throb of distant drums and snatches of intermittent wailing song
rose and fell with the little night breezes.

XLV.

THE ROAN.

Our last camp, before turning back, we pitched about two o'clock one
afternoon. Up to this time we had marched steadily down wide valleys,
around the end of mountain ranges, moving from one room to the other of
this hill-divided plateau. At last we ended on a slope that descended
gently to water. It was grown sparingly with thorn trees, among which we
raised our tents. Over against us, and across several low swells of
grass and scrub-grown hills, was a range of mountains. Here, Mavro