410 



ACROSS LEIKIPIA 



Nyiro were rich in fish, and we soon found it to be true, for 

 with three rods only we landed some twenty big fellows in a 

 very short time. 



A Neukop, who claimed to know the district well, offered 

 himself here as a guide, and we engaged him the more readily 

 as we could now send the two first guides home. A little dif- 

 ficulty arose about our doing so, however, as no native ever 

 likes to go with a caravan alone, being always afraid lest he 

 should some day be deserted. When our Leukop found his 

 predecessors were going he wanted to back out of his bargain, 

 but we took his weapon away, threatened him with various 

 penalties, and so brought him round. Later we had cause to 

 regret our eagerness to push forward, but the scarcity of our 

 provisions gave us no choice. 



Our new guide led us no further by the river, but across 

 the plateau, along the eastern edge of which the Guaso Nyiro 

 flows in a northerly direction. He was a sensible fellow, and 

 seemed to know the whole neighbourhood by heart, for he told 

 us the names of the various mountain chains and peaks in sight. 

 Throughout the whole of this march we enjoyed a grand view 

 of the Doenyo lol Deika and the landscape between it and us. 

 The Pigtail Peak appeared really to consist of a row of rugged 

 heights running nearly north and south, with no connection with 

 Mount Kenia, although from our position they seemed to start 

 from its northern base. Very dreary and forbidding looked 

 Gadormurtu, as the district between us and them is called ; steep 

 cliff-like hills and hillocks rising up abruptly from the barren 

 slopes Avhich run down westwards from the Doenyo lol Deika 

 to the river ; the shadows cast from these rigid corpse-like 

 forms giving the whole scene a most weird and melancholy 

 appearance, not unlike that of the surface of the moon when 

 seen through a telescope, but without the craters so numerous 

 on it. The smaller heights evidently consist of gneiss, which 



