RETURN TO MOMBASA 



given us timely warning, to summon another " brother " who 

 lived close by ; he came at once, and shared our watch. There 

 was, however, no further disturbance of the peace, and the whole 

 alarm may have been caused by nothing more than the playful 

 escapade of some young bloods having their little joke. It 

 was enough, though, to cause us another of those watchful and 

 anxious nights which are so unpleasant, but we did not con- 

 sider it of sufficient importance to interrupt the friendly rela- 

 tions existing between us and our neighbours, in spite of the 

 affair having indirectly caused the death of one of our porters. 



I found the same difficulty as before in getting at the 

 Kenia elephants, and had no success with them ; in fact I only 

 once even saw one ; and ivory I had been told of, and which I 

 had hoped to buy, turned out a myth ; so we decided to keep 

 on towards the Tana instead of returning by the way we had 

 come. Passing first through the populous and fertile valley 

 already mentioned, we then struck for the river. After getting 

 out of the undulating country, where the ground was nearly all 

 under cultivation — magnificent crops of millet just then ripen- 

 ing (the locusts having disappeared) — we descended gradually 

 to the level uninhabited tract below. We had now left the paths 

 behind us, and our progress became more arduous, particularly 

 on the steep sides of the ridges, owing to the long and thick 

 grass. While going down the slopes, the doctor came in con- . 

 tact with a hornet's nest — a paper-like construction attached to ' /vi^-^' 

 a spray — and we were both badly stung. Being a hardened 

 old stager, the pain .soon passed off in my case, as on many 

 similar occasions, but my friend's system, fresh from Europe, 

 resented the poison, and he suffered considerably for some time, 

 the parts swelling a good deal. 



Getting away from the hills, at the foot of which arc some 

 beautiful bits of forest, wc entered, first, open plains covered 

 with rank grass, with here and there patches of wood — a land 

 of many streams and dotted with pools and swamps (the 

 leakage of the mountain and hills). Game was plentiful here : 



