480 



ACROSS LEIKIPIA 



It was all very charming, but presently came the question 

 how we were going to get out again. I had explored a bit of 

 the course of the brook and had come upon a pretty good 

 path which I thought was probably the one taken by Count 

 Teleki, but Juma Mussa was quite sure that another narrower 

 one, winding up the western side of the pass, was the right one 

 to take, and, remembering our experience in the ravines by the 

 Guaso Nyiro, I elected for the latter. 



We began the same day by carrying the donkeys' loads up 

 part of the way separately, and the next morning the men went 

 on in single file, for we could not hope to meet all together 

 again till we got to the top of the pass. We pressed for a long- 

 time through tall grass saturated with rain, but not a sign of a 

 path could we see. Wet to the skin and shivering with cold we 

 paused to consult, and then made for a path we could see on 

 the next height to the north. Gasping for breath we struggled 

 up the steep mountain side till we gained the ridge, where a 

 splendid view rewarded us, moving even the usually indifferent 

 negroes to admiration. At a little distance off in the north-west, 

 in the midst of a yellowish-green steppe, lay the glittering 

 expanse of Lake Baringo with its bays and coves, its low-lying 

 outlines defined as on a map, its one long island and its many 

 little islets. From where we stood, looking down upon the sheet 

 of water at our feet, the highlands sloped down in a series of 

 terraces of which we counted three ; beyond the lake on the 

 plain on the south, dark green patches indicated forest, whilst 

 stretches of paler green told of reed-grown swamps, the whole 

 shut in by a dark wall of mountains, apparently of about the 

 same heio-ht as those on which we were. 



Loud shouts greeted this cheering sight, which told us that 

 the end of our troubles was at hand. There lay Baringo, and 

 in the woods on its shores was Nyemps Mkubwa, the larger of 

 the two Wakwafi villages of that name. That green out there 



