NZOIA PLATEAU AND ITS TRIBES — 229 
is a view as extensive and as lovely as any inthe land. Not 
even excepting that from the Kikuyu Escarpment into the 
Rift (Kedong) valley. As you ride along Sergoit plain 
to northward you see, some miles on your right, the heavy 
purple fringe of the great forest that borders it. You 
have probably ridden with that fringe on your right for 
almost seventy miles, if you have come from the Ravine. 
You have noticed the swells and dips of the great wood, 
that seems to cover mile after mile of almost level land. 
Now, to the east of the rock, you turn into the forest and 
climb gradually for a mile or more. Suddenly, without 
any warning, you pass out of the heavy gloom of the tropic 
wood. You find yourself on a rocky shelf that juts out over 
a precipitous slope, and right at your feet, 2500 feet below, 
lies a vast blue valley. The change from dense shade 
through which you cannot see twenty yards ahead, to the 
splendid spaciousness of the view beneath, beyond you 
and all around, is actually bewildering. 
The valley of the “‘ Kerio” is thirty miles wide and per- 
haps three hundred long. The river from which it takes 
its name flows into Lake Rudolph. The opposite side of 
the valley wall rises much more gradually than the western, 
on whose extreme crest you stand. On this side is Elgoa 
land. Twenty miles to northward begins the Maraquette 
country, and farther still to the north comes the Suk. In 
front of you to the east are the Kamasea, and beyond these 
again to northward the very numerous Turkana. Thousands 
and thousands of the people, whose flocks graze these hills 
and whose little shambas of whimby are dotted here and 
there amid the valley woodlands, have never seen a white 
‘man. And Hoey was the first ever to stand on this partic- 
ular signal rock and look on this splendid panorama. 
Joseph Thompson crossed the valley in 1883. The old 
chief of the Elgoa was a friend of H.’s and him we partic- 
ularly wanted to meet. The manner of his coming was 
