n 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
he