314 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES. 



travel, but always with good camps at fair- 

 sized streams. Gradually we slanted away from 

 the main ridge, though we still continued cross- 

 cutting the swells and ravines thrown off its 

 flanks. Only the ravines hour by hour became 

 shallower, and the swells lower and broader. On 

 their tops the scrub sometimes gave way to open- 

 ings of short grass. On these fed a few gazelle of 

 both sorts, and an occasional zebra or so. We saw 

 also four topi, a beast about the size of our wapiti, 

 built on the general specifications of a hartebeeste, 

 but with the most beautiful iridescent plum- 

 coloured coat. This quartette was very wild. I 

 made three separate stalks on them, but the best I 

 could do was 360 paces, at which range I missed. 

 Finally we surmounted the last low swell to look 

 down a wide and sloping plain to the depression in 

 which flowed the principal river of these parts, the 

 Southern Guaso Nyero. Beyond it stretched the 

 immense oceanlike plains of the Loieta, from 

 which here and there rose isolated hills, very dis- 

 tant, like lonesome ships at sea. A little to the 

 left, also very distant, we could make out an 

 unbroken blue range of mountains. These were 

 our ultimate destination. 



