VII 



ON THE MARCH 



AFTER leaving the First Game Camp, we trav- 

 elled many hours and miles over rolling hills 

 piling ever higher and higher until they broke 

 through a pass to illimitable plains. These plains 

 were mantled with the dense scrub, looking from a 

 distance and from above like the nap of soft green 

 velvet. Here and there this scrub broke in round or 

 oval patches of grass plain. Great mountain ranges 

 peered over the edge of a horizon. Lesser moun- 

 tain peaks of fantastic shapes — sheer Yosemite cliffs, 

 single buttes, castles — had ventured singly from be- 

 hind that same horizon barricade. The course of a 

 river was marked by a meandering line of green 

 jungle. 



It took us two days to get to that river. Our in- 

 termediate camp w^as halfway down the pass. We 

 ousted a hundred indignant straw-coloured monkeys 

 and twice as many baboons from the tiny flat above 

 the water hole. They bobbed away cursing over 

 their shoulders at us. Next day we debouched on 



^'5 



