CHAPTER XVII 



UP AND DOWN THE MOUNTAIN SIDE FROM THE KE- 



TOSH VILLAGE TO THE GREAT CAVE OF BATS. A 



DRAMATIC EPISODE WITH THE FINDING 



OF A BLACK BABY AS A CLIMAX 



FOR days we had heard of wonderful places higher 

 up in the mountain. The information had been so 

 vague and uncertain we hardly knew whether to 

 credit the reports or simply put them down as na- 

 tive folk lore or superstition. One night we inter- 

 viewed Askar, one of the Somali gunbearers. 



He said he had been up the mountain a year or 

 two before with a Frenchman who wanted to see 

 the mysterious natural wonders of Mount Elgon. 

 The Frenchman had to threaten to kill his native 

 guides before they would consent to lead him up in 

 the cold heights of the mountain to show him the 

 places that filled the native imagination with such 

 fear and superstitious dread. 



There was one place, Askar said, where the water 

 boiled out of the ground far, far up in the moun- 

 tain heights, and any native who looked at it fell 

 dead. Askar said he went up and looked at it 

 through the glasses, and then ran away. 



All this queer information came out at one of 

 our evening camp-fire shauris. The great central 



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