Eastern Chaga and the Lake Chala. 445 
for the regularity with which it breaks itself up into 
cone after cone, following each other, one below the 
other, as if their course had been marked off with a 
Hne, and they had been planted for some artificial 
purpose, we passed Mviti, a small independent state 
with its own chief, and a little beyond obtained a 
good view of Chala, the water lying in its deep basin 
— a sheet of the purest azure. Now making our way 
round the base of an exceedingly rocky hill, down 
over wide, grass-grown tracts, crossing innumerable 
paths made by the rush of animals to and from Lake 
Jipe ; now and then catching a sight of Bura (east), 
Ngolia (east-by-north), and Kiulu or Kikumbulu 
(north) ; now dragging the donkey out of a pitfall, 
and now clambering out of deep ditches ourselves, 
we reached Chala at one p.m. 
Now, if native accounts were to be credited, I was 
on charmed ground ! If I had only the courage, I 
was to discover a new race — perhaps the missing 
link ! — beings with whom no mortal such as our- 
selves had ever communicated ; who lived under 
the water in crystal caves ; who fed fairy cows, and 
kept fairy cocks ; yet who were so far human as to 
use the vulgar utensils belonging to our own prosy 
life, and to do the same prosy work. I should soon 
hear the lowing of their oxen, the crowing of their 
cocks, the thud of their mortars and pestles, and the 
sound of their grinding mills. 
Now for the venture. We had hit the lake upon 
its north-western corner, where from the distance it 
had seemed to me to be most accessible. There 
was a fall in this part of its encircling rim, and I 
hoped the place might afford a practicable descent to 
