NZOIA PLATEAU AND ITS TRIBES 215 



Massai owned and by which they all lived. (They live only 

 on milk and blood.) 



North of the Nandi country the wide spreading slopes 

 of Mt. Elgon rise. These are seamed and broken in an 

 extraordinary way, owing to the tremendous activity 

 of the great volcano years ago. 



When first seen the fine purple masses of the mountains, 

 seem to rise gradually and smoothly right up to the rocky 

 cliffs that form the upper lips of the crater. But from a 

 nearer point (and to gain it requires some hard and patient 

 marching, fighting through swamps and crossing and 

 re-crossing soft banked streams) the real nature of an African 

 volcano is revealed. The mountain (14,200 feet) is split and 

 torn. Groups of mighty kopjes are tossed up here and 

 there, while there is at least one canon cutting the broad 

 summit almost in half, splitting it up, a vast gash into its 

 very roots. 



Through this fine gorge, rushes down the clear volume 

 of the Turquell River. I stood on its banks after a hard 

 day's marching and my men waded across into Uganda. 

 The delicious water was cool, and far above us we could see 

 where now and again it forced its way white and foaming 

 down the rocky defiles of its mountain home. On the 

 southeastern slopes of Elgon a little known tribe, called the 

 Katosh, dwell. The people used in the riotous days gone by, 

 to retreat with their cattle into a range of mountain caves 

 of great extent. They barricaded the entrances and 

 generally seemed to have made their defence good. These 

 caves, which are of great extent, were hastily visited by 

 Joseph Thompson when he made his famous journey from 

 Mombassa through Massai land, to the Lake, in 1883. 

 He, in the most positive way, pronounced them to be artificial, 

 the work of a remote age. Since then several competent 

 men have explored them (which Thompson had no time 

 to do) and there can be no doubt that they are natural. 



