NZOIA PLATEAU AND ITS TRIBES 25 
Massai owned and by which they all lived. (They live only 
on milk and blood.) 
North of the Nandi country the wide spreading slopes 
of Mt. Elgon rise. These are seamed and broken in an 
extraordinary way, owing to the tremendous activity 
of the great volcano years ago. 
When first seen the fine purple masses of the mountains, 
seem to rise gradually and smoothly right up to the rocky 
cliffs that form the upper lips of the crater. But from a 
nearer point (and to gain it requires some hard and patient 
marching, fighting through swamps and crossing and 
re-crossing soft banked streams) the real nature of an African 
volcano is revealed. The mountain (14,200 feet) is split and 
torn. Groups of mighty kopjes are tossed up here and 
there, while there is at least one cafion cutting the broad 
summit almost in half, splitting it up, a vast gash into its 
very roots. 
Through this fine gorge, rushes down the clear volume 
of the Turquell River. I stood on its banks after a hard 
day’s marching and my men waded across into Uganda. 
The delicious water was cool, and far above us we could see 
where now and again it forced its way white and foaming 
down the rocky defiles of its mountain home. On the 
southeastern slopes of Elgon a little known tribe, called the 
Katosh, dwell. The people used in the riotous days gone by, 
to retreat with their cattle into a range of mountain caves 
of great extent. They barricaded the entrances and 
generally seemed to have made their defence good. These 
caves, which are of great extent, were hastily visited by 
Joseph Thompson when he made his famous journey from 
Mombassa through Massai land, to the Lake, in 1883. 
He, in the most positive way, pronounced them to be artificial, 
the work of a remote age. Since then several competent 
men have explored them (which Thompson had no time 
to do) and there can be no doubt that they are natural. 
