200 Mr. J. Thomson on the Exploration of Masai-Land. [Jan. 27, 



starry glowworms gleamed with mellow light, and turned the dull 

 earth to a second firmament. 



After sketching their first glimpse of Kilima Njaro the speaker 

 rapidly conveyed his hearers round the southern and western aspects 

 of this great mountain to the borderland of the Masai. He told how 

 they crossed the threshold with their hopes at the highest, and how, 

 two days later, they found it necessary to run away and return to 

 Taveta. There the expedition was camped while its commander 

 returned to the coast for additional men and goods, doing on one 

 occasion without a halt nearly seventy miles, without a drop of water 

 or bit of food — an unprecedented feat of African pedestrianism. 



On his return to Taveta the expedition once more set forth towards 

 Masai-land with unabated enthusiasm. The various characteristic 

 incidents of the march were touched upon — such as how they stalked 

 a donkey in mistake for a rhinoceros ; the scattering of the caravan by 

 furious rhinoceroses ; men and donkeys pitched into the air by a mad 

 buffalo bull running amuck through the camp ; a grass fire threatening 

 the expedition with destruction, and other incidents. Helped along 

 by such piquant variations in the daily routine of the march, Masai- 

 laud was once more reached, and they then embarked on a course of 

 romance and adventure sufficient to sate the most ardent of modern 

 knights-errant. 



To illustrate the life of an explorer among a people with whom 

 murder is a pastime and robbery an amusement, Mr. Thomson sketched 

 the events of a typical afternoon in camp, in which also he took 

 occasion to touch upon the strange customs of the Masai. He ended 

 his narrative by indicating the route taken by the expedition to 

 Victoria Nyanza, the exploration of the beautiful plateaux of Masai- 

 land and the curious meridional trough which divides them, the visit 

 to the snow-clad Kenia, the arrival at Baringo, and subsequent march 

 to Victoria Nyanza, with all the attendant adventures. 



A few words sufficed to tell the tale of the return, how the speaker 

 was tossed and nearly killed by a buffalo, and had to be carried back 

 to Baringo on a stretcher ; how his troubles did not end there, for the 

 penalty of drinking poisonous water, eating diseased meat, flour half 

 mixed with grit, and buffalo beef as tough as old boots, had to be 

 paid in the usual way. He was attacked by dysentery, and reached 

 Lake Naivasha at the point of death. Here for two months he lay 

 in a most critical condition, till, despairing of improvement, he con- 

 cluded that if he was doomed to die he had better do so trying to 

 reach the coast. To his surprise he began to improve, in spite of 

 the terrible jolting in the hammock. Taking a new route they passed 

 through a desert country, where the men suffered greatly from famine. 

 Sixteen months after the departure from the coast the expedition once 

 more found itself among the palm groves of Eabai, with the cares and 

 anxieties of travel lifted from their minds. 



