I SLIP OFF TO THE MOUNTAIN 



333 



where we were for the next day. As usual, the natives, seeing 

 that we settled down peacefully and had no idea of attacking 

 them, became bolder and bolder, so that at one time a general 

 charge seemed imminent, the war-cry sounding throughout the 

 entire valley. I had slipped out of camp alone with a view to 

 having a look at Mount Kenia, and, creeping through the 

 plantations of beans about the camp, had climbed a hill some 

 2,300 to 2,600 feet above the camp, when I heard the shouts. 



Of course I got back as quickly and quietly 



as I could, and fortunately, thanks to disputes 

 amongst the natives themselves, there was no attack after all. 

 Indeed, presently ten of the elders came into camp to assure us 

 of their peaceable intentions, and in the course of the afternoon 

 the chiefs of the next district, in which we should have to halt, 

 arrived to oner us their friendship and protection, so that, as 

 the darkness gathered about us, Kijanja's familiar £ Orioi muma ' 

 rang out again and again through the stillness of the evening. 



In the last day's march we had noted a marked change in 

 the character of the country, and this change was intensified 



