ELEPHANT HUNTING 281 



by us in column, springing and chanting. The women 

 shrilled applause, and danced in groups by themselves. 

 The Masai circled and swung in a panther-like dance of 

 their own, and the measure, and their own fierce singing 

 and calling, maddened them until two of their number, 

 their eyes staring, their faces working, went into fits of ber- 

 serker frenzy, and were disarmed at once to prevent mis- 

 chief. Some of the tribesmen held wilder dances still in the 

 evening, by the light of fires that blazed in a grove where 

 their thatched huts stood. 



The second day after reaching Neri the clouds lifted 

 and we dried our damp clothes and blankets. Through 

 the bright sunlight we saw in front of us the high rock 

 peaks of Kenia, and shining among them the fields of ever- 

 lasting snow which feed her glaciers; for beautiful, lofty 

 Kenia is one of the glacier-bearing mountains of the equator. 

 Here Kermit and Tarlton went northward on a safari of 

 their own, while Cuninghame, Heller, and I headed for 

 Kenia itself. For two days we travelled through a well- 

 peopled country. The fields of corn always called mealies 

 in Africa of beans, and sweet-potatoes, with occasional 

 plantations of bananas, touched one another in almost un- 

 interrupted succession. In most of them we saw the Ki- 

 kuyu women at work with their native hoes; for among the 

 Kikuyus, as among other savages, the woman is the drudge 

 and beast of burden. Our trail led by clear, rushing 

 streams, which formed the head-waters of the Tana; 

 among the trees fringing their banks were graceful palms, 

 and there were groves of tree ferns here and there on the 

 sides of the gorges. 



On the afternoon of the second day we struck upward 

 among the steep foot-hills of the mountain, riven by deep 

 ravines. We pitched camp in an open glade, surrounded 

 by the green wall of tangled forest, the forest of the tropical 

 mountain sides. 



The trees, strange of kind and endless in variety, grew 

 tall and close, laced together by vine and creeper, while 



