ACROSS THE MAU ESCARPMENT 71 
Then, in some unaccountable way that little cloud spreads 
itself out, and the rain now pours down in a deluge. In 
our land such a torrent would quickly empty any cloud. 
But in Africa clouds must be thicker through, than they are 
wide; and from some higher source, that we below them 
cannot see, they can spread themselves out, as though they 
held water in a funnel and not in a saucer, and grow thicker 
and darker as they pour, from somewhere, the water down. 
Once they come they do not seem, as ours do, to drift 
aside, but wait on you and over you, and pour and pour, 
hour after hour, till all the level ground is deep in stand- 
ing water. Other clouds there are, with rough, ragged edges 
like short fingers sticking out of a hand, white misty rims 
circling up from them. Then look to your tent pegs, for 
wind comes before rain. (See photograph. ‘This tent was 
wrecked in about three minutes.) 
We did not camp long at Sergoit. There is little or no 
wood to be had, and over its level greenswards we soon 
saw that the chance of stalking the lions we now heard 
nightly, was but poor. 
I had not been able to find out much about the country 
we had now entered. The maps that the department had 
on hand at Nairobi were not very correct. Men who had 
been there said it was a great game country, and that 
there were more lions there than anywhere else. So now 
nothing remained for my friend and self to do, but to explore 
for ourselves. 
In what part of the plateau lions were most numerous, 
whether they kept along the Nzoia River in goodly numbers, 
or whether they were only plentiful in the neighbourhood 
of the great papyrus swamp, to west of this rock, where 
ponies were needed to hunt them —all these things re- 
mained to be found out. 
Now lions were what I had set my heart on. I had on 
my first trip succeeded in securing many other species of 
