292 



THROUGH JUNGLE AND DESERT chap. 



manner. No ; we must push on in the same direction 

 we had been pursuing, keeping a sharp lookout for 

 them. 



About ten o'clock, just as we reached the top of 

 a slight rise in the surface of the desert, Mayolo 

 stretched his hand before him, pointed to a slope 

 nearly two miles away, and shouted, " Ndamess " (Cam- 

 els). I gazed carefully in the direction indicated, and 

 saw nothing which appeared to me like camels ; but 

 I could see what appeared to me to be hundreds 

 of small huts, covering the desert as far as the eye 

 could see. But whether huts or camels, it made little 

 difference. People must be there, and those people 

 must be the Rendile. We pushed on, and by eleven 

 o'clock had reached a dried watercourse covered with 

 dhum palms. A little digging with the hands, and 

 water was found. 



There I left most of my men, and taking with me 

 the two Wanderobbo, Karscho, and the Masai inter- 

 preter, pushed on, momentarily expecting to fall in 

 with the natives. Soon we reached a long, low hill. 

 What little verdure had once grown upon it had been 

 eaten off ; the ground was marked with countless 

 camel tracks, and we saw the footprints of men. We 

 almost broke into a run with excitement, and soon 

 came to another dried watercourse shrouded in palms. 

 We had hardly entered upon its bed, when we saw 

 before us a sight which gladdened our eyes, but at 

 the same time made us apprehensively place ourselves 

 in a posture of defence. Not 200 yards away, on the 

 bed of the stream, there was a gathering of natives, 

 300 or 400 in number, armed with spears, bows, and 



