412 



ACROSS LEIKIPIA 



We saw the tusk of a hippopotamus on the bank, and we therefore 

 hoped to get a shot at one, but no such creatures appeared. 



The next morning I received the unwelcome news that our 

 guide, who shared Juma Mussa's hut, had gone off, leaving all 

 his belongings behind him. This loss was most inconvenient 

 to us, but there was a deserted kraal not far off in which he 

 might have taken refuge, and I had it searched at once. He 

 was not there, and we had to push on without him, which was 

 anything but easy ; we had the river before us, it is true, but 

 we did not know which way it flowed, and I had no wish to 

 follow it in all its windings. It would be enough for me to get 

 a general notion of its course. Its banks were, moreover, 

 encumbered with an impenetrable thicket, consisting chiefly of 

 branched euphorbias, aloes with red flowers, and a leafless bush 

 yielding a milky sap, with light green cylindrical branches ter- 

 minating in two or three little red balls forming the fruit, the 

 whole vegetation welded into a compact mass by countless 

 creepers, &c, so that we were obliged to be content with march- 

 ing outside the belt, and found ourselves getting farther and 

 farther away from the water. Presently, however, we reached 

 a little gneiss hill, from the top of which we spied a good path 

 leading down to the river, of which we at once availed ourselves. 

 An hour later we were back at the Nyiro, near a clump of beauti- 

 ful trees, chiefly acacias and sycamores, from which hung many 

 beehives — we counted seventy — of the usual cylindrical form, 

 made out of pieces of the stem of the branched euphorbia. 

 The hives were empty, but their presence proved not only that 

 there were Wandorobbo somewhere near, but also that there 

 must be paths along the river leading to and from the hives. 

 And presently Juma Mussa brought the news that he had 

 found a path, a good clear one, along the side of the river, 

 which had, as proved by the ashes, &c, with which it was 

 strewn, but recently been used by natives. I must add 



