ly 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_.

Final