WITH FLASH-LIGHT AND RIFLE 



nearer than they really are. Years ago this immense 

 tract of land appeared to me, a new-comer, to be like a 

 sealed book full of mysteries ; to-day the book Hes open 

 before me, and I am able to decipher its characters. 

 The reading of the book is beset with many hardships. 

 It is not easy to trace the letters and words in the 

 tracks and traces left by the animals of the steppe, 

 especially the herds of elephants and rhinoceroses 

 whose trail is punctuated by broken trees and trampled 

 bushes. 



The conformation of the East African steppe is most 

 peculiar. The ground is now flat and even, now un- 

 dulating, now hilly, now traversed by mighty and high 

 mountain chains. On the table-land surrounding the 

 KiHmanjaro, a number of high mountains rise up into 

 the clouds. The highest point of the Kilimanjaro group, 

 the Kibo, eighteen to twenty thousand feet high, is 

 capped with eternal snow and ice. 



The surface of the steppe was formed by volcanic 

 activity. If we could rise sufhciently high in a bal- 

 l(wn and gain a comprehensive bird's-eye view of the 

 East Atrican steppe, we would view scenery similar to 

 that which the surface of the moon presents to us. 

 About a two days' journey from the Kilimanjaro the 

 Meru mountain, nearly eighteen thousand feet high, 

 rises from the plateau. Around and between the world 

 of mountains the steppe spreads out before us, far and 

 wide, in the bright and blinding light of the sun, at an 



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