96 



THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE RUDOLF 



When tlie men assembled, we missed the porter Dandu 

 Muhandu. He had been quite well when we started in the 

 morning, but a few minutes later he had been seized with 

 spasms of the heart, and had sat down by the path. Qualla 

 had taken his load from him, and told him to follow us when 

 he could ; but he had not been seen since. 



The next day we resumed our march to the lake. Leader 

 and men were alike in capital spirits, as was fitting on a fete day, 

 for a fete day March 6, 1888, must certainly be for us. With a 

 cheery Hayapuani! (' Off to the beach') Count Teleki had chased 

 his staff that morning ; and with the eager shout from a hundred 

 voices, ' Haya puani,' we should all certainly have rushed to 

 the lake then and there, if the character of the country through 

 which we had to pass had notbeen so very bad. The mountain 

 district between us and the lake was, in fact, a veritable hell, 

 consisting of a series of parallel heights, running from north 

 to south, which we had to cut across in a north-westerly 

 direction. The slopes of these mountains were steep pre- 

 cipices, most of them quite insurmountable, and those that 

 were not were strewn with blackish-brown blocks of rock or 

 of loose sharp-edged scorise. The narrow valleys were en- 

 cumbered with stones or debris, or with deep loose sand in 

 which our feet sunk, making progress difficult. And when 

 the sun rose higher, its rays were reflected from the smooth 

 brownish-black surface of the rock, causing an almost in- 

 tolerable glare, whilst a burning wind from the south whirled 

 the sand in our faces, and almost blew the loads off the heads 

 of the men. 



From the last height scaled we were able to get a good 

 view of the southern end of the lake and its surroundings. To 

 our surprise we saw a district covered with black streams of 

 lava, and dotted with craters of perfectly preserved form, 

 with one conical mountain from which clouds of smoke rose 



