68 ON THE UGANDA ROAD part ii 



left ; occasionally we were walking directly away from it. But 

 we had to follow the trail in all its twining, for every attempt 

 at a short cut ended by an entanglement in thorns and creepers. 

 Shortly after eight o'clock we reached three pools, known 

 as " Mawiza Matattu." We halted there for a short rest, and 

 then plunged again into the maze. This was unwise. The 

 midday heat was too much for me, and brought on an attack 

 of bilious fever. I had to rest till the afternoon under the 

 shade of some trees. When I started again I could only go 

 slowly, and the path through the scrub seemed interminable. 

 At length, however, we began to ascend the hill. Great 

 candelabra -shaped euphorbias and rock exposures became 

 numerous. The path rose to a depression in the ridge, and 

 then descended to the camping-ground. This is situated on a 

 terrace at the height of 2200 feet, about 500 feet above the 

 plain, across which it commands a glorious view. Forty miles 

 to the north, on the other side of the river Sabaki, is the long 

 low line of the lava-capped plateau of Yatta ; sixty-five miles 

 to the east-north-east the rounded dome of Mangea can be 

 discerned upon the skyline. A few miles to the west the 

 " Nyika " ends abruptly at the foot of the Taita Mountains, 

 whose rugged crests and precipitous slopes form a pleasant 

 contrast to the monotonous uniformity of the plain. But the 

 sun was setting, and I could not afford to waste the few minutes 

 of daylight even on such a view. I went on to camp as quickly 

 as I could to read a round of angles with a roughly improvised 

 plane table. 



The view at sunrise next morning was weird and grand ; 

 the whole plain was covered in mist, through which rose the 

 ridges of Taita, tinted for a few minutes with a ruddy glow. 

 The wind whipped the upper surface of the mist into wave-like 

 undulations, and tore the crests of the billows into shreds, or 

 cut them off, and carried them away as streaks of cloud. We 

 waited till the sun had dispersed the mist, and then, in a 

 steamy atmosphere, crossed the last twelve miles of the plain, 

 and pitched our camp beside a mountain stream at Ndara. 



In the afternoon I scrambled up the hillside, and collected 

 some specimens of liverworts from the rocks below a waterfall. 

 Among other products of this excursion were some specimens 

 of a wild banana. In the evening, on the plain, I got a 



