230 AFRICA SPEAKS 



Leaving the camera in place and a boy to watch it, 

 I crawled and slid back to the bottom, where I went 

 on a short exploration trip. Through the glasses I 

 had noticed steam arising along the western shore of 

 this volcanic lake, and upon trekking there, found 

 several boihng springs, many steam vents, and small 

 geysers, miniatures of those located in our own Yellow- 

 stone Park. These springs were bubbling, boihng, and 

 steaming like an old-fashioned kettle on a red-hot 

 stove. We found the water to be very hot — so hot 

 that meat could easily be cooked in one of these 

 natural caldrons. 



The scenery in this entire vale gives one the impres- 

 sion of being on another world. The boiling springs, 

 the intense heat, the sheer walls of the escarpment, 

 the slimy blue-green water through which protruded 

 the trunks of trees long dead, with their Hmbs held 

 heavenward in a gesture of despair, as if imploring 

 aid before they should sink forever below the surface 

 of this poisonous lake, all these things combined to 

 make me feel as if I were treading on a strange planet 

 where I should suddenly encounter monstrous and 

 grotesque animals similar to the dinosaur, or may- 

 hap come face to face with counterparts of the enor- 

 mous fifty-foot-long and twenty-foot-high carnivorous 

 Tyrannosaurus. 



Farther on, near the edge of the lake, we found the 

 nursery where the flamingos have constructed their 

 nests year after year by the piling up of mud into what 

 looked like exaggerated golf tees or miniature volcanic 

 craters, on the top of which, in a small hollow, the 

 one or two eggs are placed. The soda and salt crust 

 which surrounded these nests reflected back the bright 



