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The Spell of the Elelescho 



have led. Thus It Is that this strange bush, with Its 

 silver-grey leaves and aromatic odour, Is capable, as hardly 

 anything else Is, of awakening In the mind of the traveller 

 a kind of nostalgla^ — ^nostalgla for the wilderness, to which 

 he Is drawn by so much of beauty and of hardship. We 

 have gained very little by learning that botanists recognise 

 our plant as one of the Composltae, and name it 

 TarchonantMS camphorattts, L. It Is to be found also 

 In other parts of Africa ; and Professor Fritsch reported, 

 as early as 1863, that he found It growing In Griqualand, 

 then still an unsettled country, where It was called the 

 " Mohatla." It would be a pity if Its beautifully sounding 

 Masai name were not preserved for future times, and I 

 must do my best to save " Elelescho " from such oblivion. 



One must have learned the word with its sweet- 

 sounding pronunciation from the lips of a proud, handsome, 

 slender Masai warrior In order to understand how so 

 seemingly slight a thing can Imbue one's Impression of a 

 whole land. 



The Elelescho Is as prominent in those regions as 

 the oak and beech or fir In Germany, or as the juniper, 

 the heath, and the broom, and has the same Influence 

 on the landscape. But It has a greater and deeper 

 Influence upon the imagination, because it so dominates 

 those solitudes, that to him who has long travelled in 

 them the mere memory of it evokes a vivid picture of 

 their once familiar aspect. The strong scent of the 

 Elelescho plant leads the Masai to wear the leaves of 

 the bush as a decoration round their ears for the sake 

 of Its perfume. It belongs thus to the plants that because 



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