BRITISH EAST AFRICA 193 



I brought him down with a couple of 480-grain 

 bullets in the lungs; and although at one time 

 he looked like charging, I secured a very fine 

 44j-inch head of a solitary old bull without 

 much difficulty. Camp was pitched right by 

 the Guaso and directly opposite a little ford 

 to the south bank. A few miles to the north a 

 great, rugged mountain known as Laishamunye 

 — the haunt of countless vultures — frowned down 

 on us. Other igneous masses, dark and forbidding, 

 with serrated brows, towered up from the semi- 

 desert land, and far away to the south the snows 

 of Kenia were visible in the clear morning atmo- 

 sphere. Along the banks of the Guaso palms 

 enlivened the view; but away from the river 

 the picture of lava rocks, desert sand, and thorn 

 scrub, all shimmering in the haze of merciless 

 heat, was sordid and dreary. To the south of 

 the river immense forests spread over the land- 

 scape and hid much of its ugliness. Along the 

 fringes of this forest-land the full wealth of East 

 African fauna was to be seen. One day I watched 

 no less than sixty buffalo, the majority of them 

 bulls, standing on the edge of the belt of trees 

 and just above a little salt-pan. This pan 

 attracted enormous herds of wild animals — 

 giraffe, rhino, buffalo, oryx. Grant's gazelle, 

 Grevy's zebra, impala — and, of course, with such 

 an abundance of game, lions were there in large 

 numbers. In the early morning the full majesty 

 of a leonine concert would reverberate and echo 

 until the rocky mountain masses seemed alive 

 with the most awe-inspiring music that human 

 ears can listen to. 



A kill having been laid at the salt-pan one 

 night, we crossed over to the south bank of the 

 river early next morning, but unfortunately 



