CH. xit] MV BIllTHDAV 828 



exhibitions or, what is quite as bad — though the two 

 evils are usually found in different social strata — in a 

 spirit of such luxurious self-indulgence as to render 

 them at best harmless extravagances, and at worst 

 forces which positively tend to the weakening of moral 

 and physical fibre. 



On October 20 Tarlton, Kermit, Heller, and 1 started 

 from the railroad station of Londiani for tlic IJasin 

 (iishu Plateau and the 'Nzoi River, wliich flows not far 

 from the foot of Mount Elgon. This stretch of country 

 has apparently received its fauna from the shores of 

 Lake \ ictoria Xyanza, and contains several kinds of 

 antelope, and a race or variety of giraffe, the five-horned, 

 which are not found to the eastward, in the region where 

 wc had already hunted. 



On the 27th we were marching hard, and I had no 

 chance of sport. 1 would have enjoyed a hunt, 

 because it was my birthday. The year before I had 

 celebrated my fiftieth birthday by riding my jumping 

 horse, Roswell, over all the jumps in Rock Creek Park, 

 at Washington. Roswell is a safe and good jumper, 

 and a Aery easy horse to sit at a jump ; he took me. 

 without hesitation or error, over ever}^thing, from the 

 water jump to the stone wall, the rails, and the bank, 

 including a brush hurdle just over five feet and a half 

 high. 



For the first four days our route led among rolling 

 hills and along valleys and ravines, the country being so 

 high tliat the nights were actually cold, although we 

 crossed and recrossed the Equatoi-. The landscape in its 

 general effect called to mind Southern Oregon and 

 Northern California ratiier than any tropical country. 

 Some of tlie hills were bald, others wooded to the top ; 

 there were wet meadows, and hill-sides covered with 



