In Untrodden Paths 



which proved to be Mount Kilibei. As luck 

 would have it, however, the rains had just set 

 in, so we were by no means hard pressed for 

 water at any time. In fact, at one place we 

 had a little too much, and got a good bath into 

 the bargain. The volcanic nature of the country 

 in the Great Rift Valley causes it to be broken up 

 here and there into vast cracks and deep chasms. 

 We were marching along one of these gorges 

 one morning on a sandy bed of a dried-up 

 torrent. The sides were precipitous — composed 

 of solid rock — where rock rabbits, the conies of 

 the Bible, scuttled about from crevice to crevice. 

 Hardly any vegetation was to be seen, except 

 perhaps a few castor-oil plants, which seem 

 to flourish in the barren rock without water 

 in any shape or form. At last we came to a 

 narrow opening in the gorge where the rock was 

 too hard to have been worn with the rush of the 

 raging water. A small stream trickled through 

 it, with some bushes on the hill-side behind. 

 Here it struck me to group my orderlies, as the 

 scene would make a pretty picture. 



I had taken the photograph here reproduced 

 when we heard a low rumble. Mystified I asked 

 my companions what it was, and they said it was 

 probably thunder. Just at that moment, round a 

 corner behind us came a moving wall of dirty- 

 brown water. I had barely time to throw the 

 camera into the branches of a thorn bush when 



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