THE COUNT SHOOTS A PYTHON 



7 



which he had watched for half an hour. Near the brook 

 Count Teleki shot a python nearly 10 feet long, and from 

 2 feet 4 to 2 feet 8 thick, inside which he found the body of a 

 young female antelope still undigested. 



The next day the Count pressed on a little way along the 

 brook, and then, as it maintained a northerl}^ direction, he 

 turned aside to climb a ridge on the west, reaching a tunnel- 

 like ravine, profusely overgrown with vegetation, and contain- 

 ing at the foot of a rock, some 100 feet high, a few pools of 

 water. There were traces of a brook having flowed over the 

 rocky wall of the ravine in the rainy, season, and later, this 

 brook turned out to be the upper course of the Guaso Bolio, a 

 little stream which flows into Lake Baringo on the south-east. 



On November 19 Count Teleki reached the swampy brook 

 at which I camped seventeen days later, and which we now 

 know to be the lower course of the Guaso Nyuki, that once 

 flowed into Lake Baringo, but is now converted into a mere 

 swamp. The way had led in a westerly direction, right over 

 the ridge, and the descent to the plain was made along a very 

 good elephant track. The first sight of Lake Baringo was ob- 

 tained on this march. Quantities of game were seen, including 

 four lions, which suddenly sprang out at a distance of three or 

 four hundred paces. 



Another half hour's march brought the Count to Nyemps 

 Mkubwa, three-quarters of an hour's march in a north-easterly 

 direction from Nyemps Mdogo, on the right bank of the Guaso 

 Tigerich, a little stream flowing from Kamasia. Here was 

 received the melancholy news of the famine, and Count Teleki 

 was advised by some caravan people to go to the smaller 

 village, where a little dhurra at least could still be had. So 

 he transferred his camp there, where it was shady, and where 

 there were fewer natives to bother him. The next day was 

 devoted to hunting, and to despatching a party of a hundred ^ 



