ii8 ALONG THE RIFT VALLEY TO BARINGO part ii 



and stooped from sheer weakness. He looked at me for a 

 moment with his dreamy, hollow, shrunken eyes ; then with a 

 sad smile held out his hand and said, " Yambo, yambo." His 

 aspect was that of a starving man, and filled me with dis- 

 may. I knew from his salute that he must know a little 

 Kisuahili, so I eagerly asked him if there were much food in 

 Njemps. " Jocula, tele jocula ? " he repeated, and his sickly 

 smile faded into a look of bitter despair. " Jocula Jiapana " 

 (There is no food), he said with an emphasis that his appearance 

 made superfluous. Yet I assumed, or at least tried to assume, 

 a sceptical aspect, and pointed to the village, and asked him 

 what the people all lived on if they had no food. In reply he 

 only glanced up at the trees, tore off a few leaves from a branch 

 he carried in his hand, and voraciously munched them. I 

 pointed again to the highlands of Kamasia, rising like a wall 

 on the western horizon, and asked if there were food there. 

 " Jocula hapana," he repeated ; but after a pause he turned 

 to the north-west, and waving his hand several times in that 

 direction said, " Mbali, mbali, jocula kidogo " (Very far, very 

 far away, there is a little food). 



Fundi and Ramathan then came up, having been delayed 

 in pulling Philip out of the stream : I at once set the latter to 

 cross-question the native in his own language. But he could 

 only tell us that last year they had had no rain, and so the 

 crops had failed, and this year the rains had been so heavy 

 that the crops had been washed away with the soil on which 

 they grew. I staggered across the path and sat down on a 

 fallen tree-trunk, while visions rushed through my mind of the 

 disappointment of the caravan, how Wadi Hamis would 

 grumble, how each of the Wakame would look the image of 

 despair, and Omari would become even sadder and more 

 thoughtful than he had lately been, I rummaged for a whet- 

 stone in one of my capacious pockets, and began to sharpen my 

 already supersharpened hunting-knife. When this mechanical 

 motion had dulled the sickening sense of disappointment, I 

 could contemplate more at ease all that was meant by the 

 simple statement : " There is no food in Njemps." 



