nda from British East Africa.

[Drawing: _In the Crater of Mount Elgon_]

Mount Elgon is not an imposing mountain and on most occasions there is
no snow on its peaks. Only one time during the several weeks that we
were in sight of it was its summit capped with snow. A few species of
small animals live in the crater, but no human beings. At night ice
formed in the little pools where we camped and a furious wind, biting
cold, swept down from the peaks and eddied out of the great gap where
the Turkwel flows.

To all of our _safari_ it was a welcome hour when we struck camp,
preparatory to leaving the crater for the lower levels. The guides said
there were only two ways out--one by the Turkwel gorge and the other by
the route up which we came. The former might lead us far from any
sources of food supplies, which by that time were becoming imperatively
necessary, and the latter was undesirable unless as a last resort. After
some deliberation we resolved to climb over the eastern rim and strike
for the Nzoia River. No one had ever been known to take this course, but
we felt that we could cut our way out and make trails sufficient to
follow.

The guides refused to go, because by doing so they would enter a
district where they might encounter tribes that were hostile to their
own. On one side of this mountain there was a bitter tribal war even
then under way. So we cheerfully said good-by to the Elgonyi guides and
slowly climbed the rock rim and started for the unknown.

[Photograph: A Deserted Wanderobo Village]

[Photograph: Where We Had Our Thanksgiving Day Lunch]

For two days we climbed downward, sometimes along ancient elephant
trails and sometimes along the sheep trails made by the flocks of
mountain tribes. Several times we came upon deserted Wanderobo villages,
and it was evident the natives who occupied them were abandoning their
homes in terror before our descending column. Sometimes we groped our
way through great forests in which there was no trail to follow, and
sometimes we cut our way through dense jungle thickets like a solid wall
of vegetation.

[Drawing: _Galloping Lions_]

Upon several occasions we came to impassable places where an abrupt
cliff would necessitate a tiresome return and a new attempt. Once we
came to a little clearing in the vast forest where the grass was like a
lawn and where towering trees rose like the arches of a great cathedral
a hundred feet above. It was the most beautiful,