VI RETURN TO MOMBASA 129 



declined, as is my invariable rule. I always explained, when 

 importuned in this way, that I had come to shoot elephants, 

 not men ; and that until attacked, or unless my friends should 

 be so while I was with them, I desired peace with all. 



There is nothing in the shape of a plateau, such as one 

 sometimes reads of, at the foot of Kenia, though it has a broad 

 base and the slopes are on a gentle gradient. Between the 

 cultivation and the virgin forest is some beautiful pasture land, 

 where the timber has evidently been cleared and the land 

 cultivated and afterwards abandoned. It was here that we 

 made our camp for about a week. Numerous little streams, 

 cold and limpid, run down between the undulations. This is 

 a charming bit of country ; but I could not keep warm at 

 night, do what I would. Hoar frost was on the grass every 

 morning, and the wood, though abundant, would not burn. 

 The forest is very beautiful, and contains many fine timber 

 trees. The trunk of one that I measured girthed about 

 1 5 feet and was straight as a dart for at least 60 feet. 

 It was here that I met with the very handsome monkey with 

 a white collar, which, it appears, has been named Cercopithecus 

 allyotorquatus, from a specimen the locality of which was 

 unknown. A large yellow monkey, which I had seen on the 

 slopes above our Christmas camp, but of which I was unable to 

 obtain a specimen, seemed quite different from any I had ever 

 met with, and may probably be new. To these latter I was 

 attracted by their peculiar, rather musical, hooting cry — 

 reminding me somewhat of the call (distinct from its bark) of 

 the wild dog ; — but I failed to get a shot at one. In the 

 forest were, as usual in such localities, many scarlet- winged 

 plantain-eaters and big black and white hornbills. A pair of 

 the latter had their nest in a hole high up the trunk of a 

 large tree close to our camp. The male used to feed his 

 mate (which must have been sitting) through the aperture 

 — at least that is how I construed their behaviour. Among 

 many rare butterflies that I obtained here. Miss Bowdler 



K 



