148 THE MAN-EATERS OF TSAVO CHAP. 
the plateau, and saw and heard a wonderful variety 
of game, including giraffe, rhino, bush-buck, the 
lesser kudu, zebra, wart-hog, baboons and 
monkeys, and any number of faa, the last being of 
a redder colour than those of the Tsavo valley. Of 
natives or of human habitations, however, we saw 
no signs, and indeed the whole region was so 
dry and waterless as to be quite uninhabitable. The 
animals that require water have to make a nightly 
journey to and from the Sabaki, which accounts for 
the thousands of animal paths leading from the | 
plateau to the river. 
By this time we were all beginning to feel 
very tired, and the dhzst’s stock of water was 
running low. I therefore climbed the highest 
tree I could find in order to have a good look 
round, but absolutely nothing could I see in any 
direction but the same flat thorny wilderness, inter- 
spersed here and there with a few green trees; 
not a landmark of any sort or kind as far as 
the eye could reach ; a most hopeless, terrible 
place should one be lost in it, with certain death 
either by thirst or by savage beasts staring one 
in the face. Clearly, then, the only thing to do 
Was to return to the river; and in order to accom- 
plish this before dark it was necessary that no time 
should be lost. But we had been winding in and 
out so much through the animal paths that it was no 
ag hy 
