54 



THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE RUDOLF 



The men who had gone with Qualla on his arduous march 

 to Kikuyuland were still so worn out that we did our best to 

 spare them. In fact the health of the caravan was now our 

 first care, and some of the porters took advantage of our con- 

 sideration for them to dip tlieir own hands in the food stores. 

 It was the careful Qualla who noticed this first. Suspecting 

 mischief, he weighed some sacks which looked thinner than the 

 others one evening and found that they had been tampered 

 with. The discovery caused the greatest excitement in the 

 whole caravan, for it was to the interest of all to husband our 

 resources. The theft was looked upon as a sin against every 

 one, and, as an example to the others, the thief, with a comrade 

 who had eaten of the stolen corn with him, received fifty 

 lashes each, the maximum punishment ever inflicted for mis- 

 demeanours of this kind. 



Sokoni, our guide from Nyemps, turned the incident to 

 account by giving an harangue to the assembled porters in the 

 evening. This guide was a very experienced fellow, thoroughly 

 familiar with caravan life, for he had once gone to Pangani 

 with a trading caravan, and acted as guide and interpreter to 

 another in Kamasia, Elgeyo, Ngaboto, and Ngamatak, on the 

 west and north-west of Lake Baringo. His speech was really 

 very sensible, and made a deeper impression on the men than 

 if it had come from one of themselves. For this reason the 

 Count often made him hold forth again, and his reiterated 

 ' Schika mibuyu ! ' and ' Schika unga ! ' (' Look after your water- 

 vessels, take care of your grain ') could not too often be dinned 

 into the ears of our thoughtless men. Bread and water ! How 

 often we were to long for them both ! 



The next day we continued our journey by a good path 

 through a broad flat valley to the Mogodeni stream, where we 

 camped. 



The stream rises in the highlands of Leikipia and flows to 



