AFRICAN CAMP FIRES. 



a basket of provisions. These we were invited 

 to share. Diplomacy's highest triumph ! 



After lunch we surmounted our first steep 

 grade to the top of a ridge. This we found to be 

 the beginning of a long elevated plateau sweep- 

 ing gently downward to a distant heat mist, which 

 later experience proved a concealment to snow- 

 capped Kilimanjaro. This plateau also looked 

 to be covered with scrub. As we penetrated it, 

 however, we found the bushes were more or less 

 scattered, while in the wide, shallow dips between 

 the undulations were open grassy meadows. 

 There was no water. Isolated mountains or 

 peaked hills showed here and there in the illim- 

 itable spaces, some of them fairly hull down, 

 all of them toilsomely distant. This was the 

 Serengetti itself. 



In this great extent of country somewhere were 

 game herds. They were exceedingly migratory, 

 and nobody knew very much about them. One 

 of the species would be the rare and localized 

 fringe-eared oryx. This beast was the principal 

 zoological end of our expedition; though, of 

 course, as always, we hoped for a chance lion. 

 Geographically we wished to find the source of 

 the Swanee River, and to follow that stream 

 down to its joining with the Tsavo. 



