236 Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe on Birds 



had ever passed through the country. The people were noisy, 

 the men mostly in a semi-drunken state from the effects of 

 bang and smoking. On October 26 the party arrived at the 

 Lake, and on November 7 Qua Sundu (now known as Mu- 

 miyas) was reached — the same place where Thomson arrived 

 in December 1883 and Fischer in March 1886 — about 30 

 miles from the north-east corner of Victoria Nyanza. 



" From Qua Sundu Mr. Jackson, leaving a party there to 

 await his return, marched northward to explore the Suk 

 country, passing the inhabited district of Kitosh (where iron- 

 ore is plentiful and worked by the natives), into the wilder- 

 ness skirting the eastern slopes of Mount Elgon. Water 

 here is abundant and deliciously cool, the hills very rough and 

 stony, ' with beautiful white quartz showing through the 

 surface and scattered about in loose pieces.^ Ivory is very 

 cheap and plentiful, as the people have no use for it except 

 to make armlets, &c. ; a 16-lb. tusk can be had for six 

 strings of beads. Fish is plentiful in the rivers and excellent. 

 It was Mr. .lackson^s purpose to proceed as far as Lake 

 Rudolf (which Count Teleki had lately visited), but on 

 reaching Ngoboto, where he had calculated on getting 

 food- supplies, he found the people so hostile, on account of 

 the looting and raiding of Teleki's men, that he was forced to 

 return. 



'' On the return journey a good-sized lake was sighted some 

 30 miles off to the north-west ; this was named Lake Salisbury. 

 Mount Elgon was visited and explored with interesting results. 

 Ascending from the district of Save on the north side, a dense 

 forest was passed through from 6000 ft. to 9000 ft,, after 

 which they entered open ground with bushes dotted about, 

 heaths, and coarse grass. From 11,000 ft. to 13,000 ft. ' a 

 curious tree, with straight rough stem and large leaf -top,' 

 grows in abundance. On the 17th of February, 1890, Mr. 

 Jackson and his party entered the crater of Mount Elgon and 

 encamped there for the night. The crater is from eight to 

 nine miles in diameter, and the bottom appeared boggy and 

 swampy. ' Here the River Angalul rises and flows through 

 the exceedingly precipitous break in the side of the crater; 



