THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY 19 



July 8. — Up at five, with breakfast in the dark. 

 Then we sat ourselves down to wait for the guides who 

 had promised to be over early. They drifted in at 

 8:10, and we set out. After we had been going some 

 little time they blandly informed us that the track we 

 had been advised to take was without water for three 

 days. That they told us at all was entirely accidental. 

 We immediately called a halt and after some shauri* 

 we headed at right angles for Kedong. It was a park 

 country all day, with forests, groves, open meadows, 

 side hill shambas,^ and beautiful intimate prospects 

 through trees. Kikuyus were everywhere. 



At about ten o 'clock we came to a little boggy stream, 

 insignificant to look at, and unimportant to porters, but 

 terrible to donkeys. We built a sort of causeway of 

 branches, rushes, earth, etc., and then set in to get our 

 faithful friends to use it. Then and there we discov- 

 ered that when a donkey gets discouraged over any- 

 thing, he simply lies down, and has to be lifted bodily 

 to a pair of very limber legs before he will go on. 

 Luckily these were small donkeys; we lifted most of 

 them. 



After a time we topped a ridge and came out on 

 rolling grass hills, with lakes of grass in valleys, and 

 cattle feeding, and a distant uplift that marked the 

 limit of the Likipia escarpment. At two o'clock we 



*Confab, pow-wow. 

 tNative clearings. 



