CH. x] MOUNT KEN I A 233 



graceful palms, and there were groves of tree-ferns here 

 and there on the sides of the gorges. 



On the afternoon of the second day we struck upward 

 among the steep foot-hills of the mountain, riven by 

 deep ravines. ^Vc pitched camp in an open glade, 

 surrounded by the green wall of tangled forest, the 

 forest of the tropical mountain-sides. 



The trees, strange of kind and endless in variety, 

 grew tall and close, laced together by vine and creeper, 

 while underbrush crowded the space between their 

 mossy trunks, and covered the leafy mould beneath. 

 Towards dusk crested ibis fiew o\'erhead with harsh 

 clamour, to seek their night roosts ; parrots chattered, 

 and a curiously home-like touch was gi\en by the 

 presence of a thrush in colour and shape almost exactly 

 like our robin. Monkeys called in the depths of the 

 forest, and after dark tree-frogs piped and croaked, and 

 the tree-hyraxes uttered their wailing cries. 



Elephants dwelt permanently in this mountainous 

 region of hea\y woodland. On our march thither we 

 had already seen their traces in the " shambas," as the 

 cultivated fields of the natives are termed ; for the great 

 beasts are fond of raiding the crops at night, and their 

 inroads often do serious damage. In this neighbourhood 

 their habit is to live high up in the mountains, in the 

 bamboos, while the weather is dry : the cows and calves 

 keeping closer to the bamboos than the bulls. A spell 

 of wet weather, such as we had fortunately been ha\ ing, 

 drives them down in the dense forest which covers the 

 lower slopes. Here they may cither pass all their time, 

 or at night they may go still further down, into the open 

 valley where the shambas lie ; or they may occasionally 

 still do what they habitually did in the days before the 

 white hunters came, and wander far away, making 



