CHAPTER XI 



A BATTLE WITH A TORRENT 



WHILE Colonel Roosevelt was engaged 

 collecting a group of elephants on the 

 opposite side of Mount Kenia Doc- 

 tor Mearns and I had been instructed to ascend 

 the west slope as high as possible and make a 

 thorough biological survey at various altitudes. 



Boga, a Kikuyu native, had heard of our 

 intention to climb the mountain, so, while we 

 were camped at Neri, he presented himself and 

 applied for the position of guide. He knew the 

 way? Oh, yes; he had been a member of the 

 Ross expedition that had ascended to the top 

 of the mountain a few years before; therefore 

 he had qualified as a guide. 



One might ask: "But why should you need a 

 guide to show you the way to an isolated moun- 

 tain of jungle, bamboo, heather, rock, and snow 

 seventeen thousand two hundred feet high and 

 only thirty miles distant?" So far as not being 

 able to find the mountain was concerned, there 



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