THE THOWA EIVEE 
19 
the drought, precludes the possibility of European or even 
native occupation. 
The Akamba consider the Thowa Eiver Camp as the 
extreme eastern limit of their territory, and the guides became 
quite anxious beyond this point, lest we should be attacked 
at night by hunting parties of the Galla. From what they 
said it would seem that the locality had been the scene of many 
fights between rival hunting parties of Galla and Akamba for 
possession of each other’s ivory. 
As far as the Thowa Eiver Camp we had followed along an 
old track which at times became quite lost, but the guides, 
never losing their bearings, took direction from one marked 
tree to another. These seemed to be well-known landmarks 
to a number of the men. Beyond, no path existed ; but so 
skilfully did these men march from one landmark to another 
that the absence of the path caused no anxiety or delay. 
In the inhabited parts of Kitui the Baobab trees frequently 
serve as convenient landmarks, but here they were entirely 
absent. The scrub presents an infinite variety of bushes, 
some dry and thorny, others with a soft green foliage, and a 
few bearing eatable berries. Three kinds of fibre were met with, 
but in small quantities only. 
No tsetse flies were seen, though some other species of 
biting flies were secured. Butterflies were conspicuous by 
their absence. 
The game encountered were such as have been mentioned 
above, with the addition of rhinoceros and a gazelle, which I 
took at first sight to be an immature gerenuk owing to absence 
of horns, but which, on closer inspection, I believe to be of 
another species. Greater kudu was reported, but I was only 
shown the spoor, with which I was not familiar. The horns 
of a waterbuck were picked up near Mutila. 
Judging from spoor, the game must be very plentiful. But 
in a bush of this sort, one’s field of vision is so limited that one 
might be led to suppose that game were very scarce. A pair 
of lions were heard one morning, but that was all we heard or 
saw of lions or leopards. 
Game birds are not plentiful and become scarcer as one 
goes east. They include guinea-fowl (vulturine with blue 
