io8 NAIROBI AND MT. KENYA 



frequents, in which boulders hidden by high grass and deep ant-bear 

 holes excavated in the soil keep the hunter in continual danger. 



The risk of the sport consists in the fact that he who would over- 

 take and spear one of these animals must do so at full gallop, for they 

 are adepts in rapid transit. Yet the hunter must give his attention 

 at once to the ground he is traversing and to the brute he is pursuing. 

 When the pig is neared within a few yards, the perils of the ground 

 must be neglected and attention given solely to the brute, which may 

 turn and charge upon its pursuer at any moment. A stumble of the 

 horse and a fall at such a critical instant is very dangerous, as the hog 

 would be sure to attack the unhorsed man and seek to rip him up with 

 its sharp tusks. In such a crisis the spear is a poor dependence, 

 and the hunter would find it serviceable to have a revolver strapped 

 to his thigh — for emergency use. 



To quote a well-known American aphorism : "You do not want a 

 pistol often, but when you do, you want it very badly." 



But neglecting for the time being these narratives of hunting 

 ventures, let us follow the Roosevelt expedition farther into the land 

 and look with the eyes of its members upon the huge brother mountain 

 to Mount Kenya, the gigantic Mount Elgon, which lies more to the 

 westward. This huge mountain mass is a natural phenomenon of 

 great interest. While not so elevated as Mount Kenya — its height be- 

 ing about 14,200 feet — it surpasses it greatly, and probably every other 

 volcano in the world, in its enormous superficial extent. It is not a 

 mountain only; it is a country. Its mass covers an area equal to that 

 of the whole of Switzerland. If we could imagine this Alpine land as 

 occupied by a single huge mountain mass of great elevation, we would 

 gain some definite idea of the size of this mammoth African volcano. 

 We may judge something of this when told that its crater alone is 

 about thirty miles across. 



Caves, many of them, exist on the sides of this mountain mass at 

 an average height of 8,000 feet, they lying at the bottom of abrupt 

 terraces. They appear to have arisen in the first place from the action 

 of water, and give undue evidence of having been enlarged by the 

 hands of man. They undoubtedly have been inhabited during a long 

 period of past time. There is reason to believe that Elgon was a great 



