238 THROUGH UNKNOWN AFRICAN COUNTRIES. 
part of the Galana valley, curving now more south and 
then more west, around aswamp, till we reached the 
water-gap. 
The camels travelled well, in spite of the deep ruts and 
the long coarse grass. ‘The country was almost level, and 
if we had attempted the journey a fortnight earlier we 
should have found it an impassable swamp. But the rains 
had ceased now, and the waters were rapidly drying up. 
I never saw a greater variety of game at one time than I 
did in this march. Burchell’s zebras, Coke’s hartebeests, 
Waller’s and Thompson's gazelles, water bucks (Codus 
defassa), Oryx betsa, ostriches, wart-hogs, elephants, and 
rhinoceroses abounded. 
And as luck would have it, to swell this list, the noise of 
the caravan startled a lion from behind a bush, but too far 
away for me to get a shot. I saw a single track of a buf- 
falo, but none of the animals themselves. The cattle 
disease that swept through this country five years ago 
spared scarcely one of these fine animals out of the herds 
of thousands that used to roam about, as is shown by 
the quantities of skulls lying about on every side. One 
rhinoceros attempted to charge the caravan, but I made 
him turn from his course by lodging a bullet somewhere 
in his abdomen. We camped well in the canyon, through 
which the river passed, in the midst of a dense forest. 
Far off on the mountains to the north were many gar- 
dens belonging to the Konso people, but there were no 
signs of human beings ever having visited the valley. On 
May 19 we followed the windings of the river along rough 
elephant paths that were obliterated in places by bushes 
and tall grass. Much chopping had to be done, and at 
times it seemed impossible to go any farther. There were 
many hippos, but I did not shoot them, as I could not have 
recovered their bodies. The next day our difficulties 
