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THE LUMBWA AND ELGON CAVES 
ing the elevation of the mountain mass by some 2000 to 8000 
feet. We should, however, consider all the facts available. 
Sir Frederick Jackson recently informed me that when he 
made the first ascent of the mountain in 1889 he saw at one 
spot a cave half-way up a cliff about 200 ft. in height, and in 
a position quite inaccessible by man, but of course the floor 
of the valley in which it occurred may have been very rapidly 
eroded. I remember visiting one about 1899, which had a great 
vaulted hall nearly 30 ft. in height, with a spring dripping from 
the roof and with a colony of natives living inside ; this cave 
tapered away in its recesses to a height of about 2 ft. I asked 
the natives if it was excavated by man, but they ridiculed the 
idea. In some of the caves, however, marks were seen where 
fragments of the soft ash had been chipped off with the butt 
end of spears. 
A hurried examination of the floor of a cave to a depth of 
4 feet demonstrated that it had been inhabited at intervals 
for a considerable period, for charred wood, ashes, and frag- 
ments of bones were found at varying depths. I should like 
to add that none of the caves visited by me were in lava, so 
they could hardly have been caused by cavities in eruptive 
masses or by steam bubbles ; they were invariably in porous 
volcanic ash or agglomerate. In one or two cases there was 
a waterfall over the mouth, but no evidence that the stream 
once flowed through the cave instead of over the top. The 
majority of the caves were very dry and dusty inside, and some 
swarmed with fleas. 
The present population on the mountain is scanty, and it 
is hard to believe that they could account for the numerous 
caves on the mountain. Some of them are high up in the 
bamboo zone, and far above the limit of human habitation ; 
others again are on the east flanks, which are now uninhabited. 
The present inhabitants, moreover, do not appear to be 
excavating anything from the caves. 
Of course if it could be shown that the mountain is, or has 
been, rising with comparative rapidity, it might just be possible 
that what is now the high forest zone was in Palaeolithic times 
a zone habitable by man — that is to say, if one entirely adopts 
the view that they are excavated by man. Primitive man, 
