A ZANZIBARI SENTRY 



rock of this prairie ended abruptly at the foot of the old gneiss 

 ridge on which I stood, but it followed its outline, running 

 up the valleys, round the spurs, and into the hollows of the 

 mountains, just as the water of a lake adapts itself to the 

 irregularities of its shore. In this, as well as in other ways, 

 the view reminded me so much of that of the Snake River 

 lava plains of Idaho, as seen from the western flanks of the 

 Rocky Mountains, that I felt sure that this was a plain of lava 

 and not of alluvium. I walked quickly down the slope to the 

 nearest point where the rock could be seen, and found, as I 

 expected, a lava, a coarse trachyte with very large porphyritic 

 crystals of sanidine. 



The impression that the whole plain was of lava was con- 

 firmed during our march across it, and I was mentally braced 

 up by a crowd of new and perplexing problems. But the 

 work of the caravan was a terrible tax upon my time. The 

 day after leaving Machakos the box containing most of my 

 sporting cartridges, and all the plants collected on the way 

 from the coast, was dropped into a stream. I spent four hours 

 in the effort to dry them ; but as they had been soaking in 

 water for several hours before I reached camp and the acci- 

 dent was reported to me, nearly all the plants were ruined. 

 I was consoled for the loss at the time by the vain hope that I 

 could collect another set on the return march. 



Our camp that night was a rather risky one. Major Eric 

 Smith of the ist Life Guards had had an encounter with 

 the Masai here, and its name was marked with a double 

 asterisk on the list of dangerous camps that had been 

 given me. Moreover, it was here that Mr. Jackson and Dr. 

 Mackinnon had seen a " herd " of twenty-three lions, and the 

 place was reported to swarm with them. Hence the sentries 

 had been ordered to keep a specially careful watch. Never- 

 theless, when I went round camp at a quarter past three in 

 the morning, the sentry was sound asleep in his tent. I 

 called out " Askari " twice without rousing him, so I woke 

 Omari and showed him the sleeping sentry ; we knocked over 

 the man's tent, and I kicked the culprit round the camp. The 

 noise roused the porters. When they heard the cause of the 

 disturbance, they created a tremendous uproar. The poor 

 sentry had a very bad time of it. One porter declared he 



