258 THE LAND OF THE LION 



heavier in quality than in our northern woods, they are 

 more rounded, they branch more luxuriantly. 



Now in October, as though following the custom cf 

 far other lands, they have ripened into a dull burnt gold, 

 sometimes deepening into a fine crimson. 



Nor are all the flowers gone. From the abrupt edges 

 of the wood, where it meets the yellow grass, salvias grow 

 luxuriantly; sometimes filling spaces in the curving forest 

 line with banks of purple flower that rise fifteen or even 

 twenty feet to meet the spreading boughs stretched out to 

 shade them. 



I halted my mule on the highest ridge of the great 

 sweep of down, from which first, many months before, I 

 had seen, far away to northward, Sergoit summit stand 

 out pink in the evening light. 



Good-bye, Sergoit! What changes has not your gray 

 head looked down on! In ages long ago that softly out- 

 lined purple Elgon that now faces you to the west was 

 pouring forth devastating tides of lava from the rocky 

 lips of the great crater that this evening are sharply out- 

 lined against the crimson sky. And the wide plain, almost 

 to your base, was a sea of fire. 



Then the tropic rains and scorching suns did their 

 faithful work, till the land grew rich and green, and forests 

 smoothed away the harsh wrinkles that Elgon had plowed 

 on the face of the country. 



Then came the wild life, man's and beast's, much 

 of it almost the same as it is to-day. Tribes rose and 

 perished, surged forward, fell backward. 



Our poor, forgotten Sarequa built the stone kraals 

 that lie around your feet, and no doubt many a bloody 

 fight you beheld, before the attacking spear men forced 

 their narrow stone entrances. 



Then came the groaning slave gang, toiling along its bone- 

 strewn way to the sea. You have looked down on it all. 



