ACROSS THE MAU ESCARPMENT 71 



Then, in some unaccountable way that little cloud spreads 

 itself out, and the rain now pours down in a deluge. In 

 our land such a torrent would quickly empty any cloud. 

 But in Africa clouds must be thicker through, than they are 

 wide; and from some higher source, that we below them 

 cannot see, they can spread themselves out, as though they 

 held water in a funnel and not in a saucer, and grow thicker 

 and darker as they pour, from somewhere, the water down. 

 Once they come they do not seem, as ours do, to drift 

 aside, but wait on you and over you, and pour and pour, 

 hour after hour, till all the level ground is deep in stand- 

 ing water. Other clouds there are, with rough, ragged edges 

 like short fingers sticking out of a hand, white misty rims 

 circling up from them. Then look to your tent pegs, for 

 wind comes before rain. (See photograph. This tent was 

 wrecked in about three minutes.) 



We did not camp long at Sergoit. There is little or no 

 wood to be had, and over its level greenswards we soon 

 saw that the chance of stalking the lions we now heard 

 nightly, was but poor. 



I had not been able to find out much about the country 

 we had now entered. The maps that the department had 

 on hand at Nairobi were not very correct. Men who had 

 been there said it was a great game country, and that 

 there were more lions there than anywhere else. So now 

 nothing remained for my friend and self to do, but to explore 

 for ourselves. 



In what part of the plateau lions were most numerous, 

 whether they kept along the Nzoia River in goodly numbers, 

 or whether they were only plentiful in the neighbourhood 

 of the great papyrus swamp, to west of this rock, where 

 ponies were needed to hunt them all these things re- 

 mained to be found out. 



Now lions were what I had set my heart on. I had on 

 my first trip succeeded in securing many other species of 



