TRUE POSITION OF LAKE NAIVASHA 



295 



loftiest of the series of slieets of water running in a southerly 

 direction across the districts explored by us. It has no outlet, 

 and the water is sweet and pleasant to the taste. On the east its 

 shores are flat and sandy, on the north-east and north, where 

 it receives the Murenta and Gilgil, they are overgrown with 

 rushes, and on the south and west they are proportionately 

 high and rocky. The districts on the west are called Ndabibi 

 by the Masai, after a kind of clover which grows in them. From 

 the south-eastern portion of the lake rise one large and two 

 smaller reef-like islands, which give the impression of being 

 the remains of a sunk and broken-up crater, of which the 

 eastern portion has disappeared altogether. The northern end 

 of the water appears to be swampy and overgrown with rushes. 

 Lake JSTaivasha is far more picturesquely situated than Lake 

 Baringo, flanked as it is on the north by the Doenye Burn, and 

 on the south by Mount Lonongot or Lombatata, an extinct 

 volcano nearly 2,000 feet high, with a perfectly preserved main 

 crater and a secondary crater on the northern slope, belonging 

 to the Mau escarpment. 



As far as we could remember, Lake Naivasha was not placed 

 in exactly the right position on the map of Africa, so I turned 

 this opportunity to account, as well as I could in a rapid march 

 past, by making sure of the bearings of thirty-six points in the 

 immediate neighbourhood, and the place assigned to the lake 

 in the map accompanying these volumes is the result of my 

 observations. 



We had a long march before us the next day, so we started 

 before sunrise, first following the base of a low steep spur 

 running alongside of the eastern shore of the lake, and then 

 ascending a gentle grassy slope, reaching, after several hours' 

 tramp, the saddle connecting the Doenye Lonongot with the 

 eastern side of the plateau. Throughout this march we had 

 constantly in sight the isolated Mount Suswa, an extinct volcano 



