362 



CHAPTEE VI 



STAY AT NDOEO. ASCENT OF MOUNT KENIA. JOURNEY THROUGH 

 LEIKIPIA AND TRIP TO LAKE BARINGO 



From October 8 to December 7, 1887 



A quiet time at the foot of Mount Kenia — A Kikuyu Leibon — Purchase of food — 

 We get more rain than we want — The Count starts for Mount Kenia — Kesult 

 of rain on the appearance of the country — Count Teleki's ascent of Kenia — My 

 trip to the bamboo thicket — Four lions — Our further plans — Count Teleki goes 

 on in advance — A false alarm — We meet on the Guaso Nyiro — Along the 

 Aberdare mountains — Masai on the war-path — Nomad Masai — On the Marma- 

 nett mountains — To Lare lol Morio — Lekibes, Leibon of Leikipia — Division of 

 the Expedition— Along the Guaso Nyiro— Eeturn to Lare — My march to Lake 

 Baringo — First sight of the lake — Bad news 



Our lonely JSTdoro camp was not in particularly beautiful 

 scenery, for though strictly speaking at the base of Kenia, it 

 was near the depression between that mountain and the 

 Aberdare range, with grassy heights sloping up almost im- 

 perceptibly on the west to the broken many-peaked masses of 

 the latter, and on the east to the single dome of the former. 

 On the north stretched an undulating steppe, and near by 

 on the south-east flowed a little brook, bordered on the 

 further side by thick bush. The short rainy season was now 

 approaching. The woods were in their autumn foliage and 

 the dry grass of the steppes was of a greyish-yellow colour. 

 About a hundred paces off in a shallow ravine was a little 

 swamp overgrown with water-lilies and rushes, to which snipe 

 and cranes (Balearica pavoninci) came down now and then, 

 whilst the croaking of froo*s was continuous. Otherwise the 



