NZOIA PLATEAU AND ITS TRIBES 229 



is a view as extensive and as lovely as any in the land. Not 

 even excepting that from the Kikuyu Escarpment into the 

 Rift (Kedong) valley. As you ride along Sergoit plain 

 to northward you see, some miles on your right, the heavy 

 purple fringe of the great forest that borders it. You 

 have probably ridden with that fringe on your right for 

 almost seventy miles, if you have come from the Ravine. 

 You have noticed the swells and dips of the great wood, 

 that seems to cover mile after mile of almost level land. 

 Now, to the east of the rock, you turn into the forest and 

 climb gradually for a mile or more. Suddenly, without 

 any warning, you pass out of the heavy gloom of the tropic 

 wood. You find yourself on a rocky shelf that juts out over 

 a precipitous slope, and right at your feet, 2500 feet below, 

 lies a vast blue valley. The change from dense shade 

 through which you cannot see twenty yards ahead, to the 

 splendid spaciousness of the view beneath, beyond you 

 and all around, is actually bewildering. 



The valley of the "Kerio" is thirty miles wide and per- 

 haps three hundred long. The river from which it takes 

 its name flows into Lake Rudolph. The opposite side of 

 the valley wall rises much more gradually than the western, 

 on whose extreme crest you stand. On this side is Elgoa 

 land. Twenty miles to northward begins the Maraquette 

 country, and farther still to the north comes the Suk. In 

 front of you to the east are the Kamasea, and beyond these 

 again to northward the very numerous Turkana. Thousands 

 and thousands of the people, whose flocks graze these hills 

 and whose little shambas of whimby are dotted here and 

 there amid the valley woodlands, have never seen a white 

 man. And Hoey was the first ever to stand on this partic- 

 ular signal rock and look on this splendid panorama. 

 Joseph Thompson crossed the valley in 1883. The old 

 chief of the Elgoa was a friend of H. 's and him we partic- 

 ularly wanted to meet. The manner of his coming was 



