316 RETURN FROM LAKE BARINGO TO THE COAST 



Beans and maize alone are cultivated, and they are eked out 

 with, baobab fruit. The domestic animals are a few sheep 

 and oxen, with plenty of poultry. The Wakamba of this pro- 

 vince go on hunting expeditions to Teita, Taveta, and Kilima- 

 njaro, exchanging their game for cereals. 



On September 24 we reached the Mdido Andei stream, also 

 generally dried up, where the knotty crippled-looking trees 

 began to be exchanged for a luxuriant and picturesque vege- 

 tation, consisting chiefly of acacias and fan-palms. 



Arrived at the southern base of the Julu chain, our astonish- 

 ment was great at finding ourselves in the midst of numerous 

 extinct but perfectly preserved craters, the slopes covered 

 with streams of porous lava, apparently as fresh as those we 

 had met with near the Teleki volcano. Some of the lower 

 heights were of conical form and strewn with many-coloured 

 ashes. 



We camped by a fissure at the junction of two streams of 

 lava, at the bottom of which there was a little water, scarcely 

 enough for the needs of the men, so that the animals got 

 none. 



Our march the next morning brought us to the pretty little 

 Tzavo stream, fringed with a narrow belt of wood. Where we 

 reached it, it was but a couple of paces broad and very shallow, 

 but for all that it represents nearly all the water flowing from 

 the eastern slopes of Kilimanjaro, which it bears to the Azi- 

 Sabaki. Whilst here we heard shots in the direction of Useri, 

 and concluded that some European was hunting there. 



We were now but three marches from Taveta, and the talk 

 of our men was all of Zanzibar and the treasures they had left 

 behind there. We listened to several most interesting tete-a- 

 tetes, from which we gathered that some of the men did not 

 feel very sure of the faithfulness of their wives during their 

 absence ; many of them evidently expected to find changes in 



