CHAP. VI WATCH AND WAIT 



105 



We stood on guard, expecting at any moment an attack in 

 force by the main body. But as this was not deHvered, and I 

 knew there would be no lack of sentries for the rest of that 

 night, I turned into the tent and enjoyed my first three hours 

 of continuous sleep since I had left the protection of Fort 

 Smith. 



At four in the morning I had breakfast, and the men 

 packed up the loads. We waited anxiously for dawn, for we 

 dared not start in the dark, lest we should walk into an ambush. 

 The moment the light was strong enough to enable us to 

 guard against surprise, we marched northward across the plain. 

 Unnoticed by the Masai we waded the swamps beside the 

 streams that enter the north-eastern corner of the lake ; but 

 as soon as we lost the shelter of the papyrus in the swamps 

 and the scrub on its borders, we were discovered by some 

 shepherds. They took the news to the nearest kraal, and a 

 party of El-Moran came out to watch us. On the open grass- 

 land they dared not attack, so they followed at a respectful 

 distance. A few miles farther on we were stopped by the 

 river Malewa or Murendat. To avoid passing near some kraals 

 we had bent our course far to the west, and thus, instead of 

 striking the river at the ford, we reached it where it flowed 

 through a deep sinuous canon. We marched along this to 

 find a place where we could descend to the river, so as to be 

 able to get water even if we could not cross. We found a 

 track which led down to a ford, but the river was impassable. 

 The flood, however, was subsiding rapidly, for the bank was 

 still w^et for more than a foot above the level of the water. We 

 placed some notched sticks in the river to mark its rate of 

 decline, and camped. For twenty long hours we sat beside 

 the ford, watching successively the river, the Masai, and the 

 clouds on the hills to the east, and feeling probably much like 

 the Israelites, when they had the Red Sea in front of them and 

 Pharaoh's hosts behind. 



In the evening, as the river had fallen several inches, I 

 tried again to cross ; I reached a shoal in the middle, but the 

 last channel was too much for me. A school of hippopotami was 

 playing in the pool below the ford ; as I had been carried down 

 into it in the morning, I did not think it worth the risk of 

 adding to their sport, and swam back to the southern shore. 



