AND THE RUDOLP BASIN 



25 



in the north to the Suk or Elkakisera country, while southwards it rises 

 in gentle undulations to heights of 7,000 and 8,000 feet, joining on thus 

 to the special country of the Nandi. For the most part the downs, over 

 which one's gaze can stretch for tifty or sixty miles as they gently slope 

 towards the north or towards the Victoria Nyanza, are clothed with soft, 

 silky grass, which takes a pale pink, mauye, grey, or russet sheen as the 

 wind bends the flowering stems before it. 



Over this Gwas' Ngishu Plateau (where the traveller must lieware of 

 following any presumed native path, since it is only a cunning device 



20. GKASS OX THE GWAs' \« I.SHU I'L.VTEAl 



leading up to a game-trap, an oblong pitfall hidden with sticks and cut grass) 

 roam countless wild animals at the present day — and I earnestly pray may 

 continue to roam there, comj)letely protected from the -British sportsman 

 and his oft-times insensate ravages. (The nomad natives who make these 

 game-pits secure too small a proportion of the antelopes to be taken into 

 much account.) Here may be seen large herds of giraffes as one might 

 see cattle peacefully standing about in an English park. These giraffes are 

 the finest development we yet know of the northern form ; of that species of 

 giraffe which extends all over North Central Africa from east to west, with 

 the exception of Somaliland, where a peculiarly coloured species is developed. 



