MA SA I LA A’D. 
553 
brooks and streams — those of Lykipia forming the mys 
terious Guaso Nyiro ; those of Kikuyu the Tana, which 
flows to the Indian Ocean through the Galla country ; 
while further south in Kapte the streams converge to 
form the Athi River, which flows through U-kambani to 
the Sabaki River. 
Kikuyu occupies the higher areas of the eastern half 
of the plateau, cutting across it immediately south of 
the equator. Some of the higher parts are covered with 
a dense forest of bamboo ; notably to the east of Naiva- 
sha, and between it and the Aberdare Mountains. Hence 
the Swahili name of one recruiting-place — Mianzi-ni 
(Bamboo Country). 
The greater part of Lykipia — and that the richer 
portion — is quite uninhabited, owing, in a great degree 
to the decimation of the Masai of that part through their 
intestine wars — a fact that has caused them to retreat 
from the northerly districts, which are in dangerous 
proximity to the Wa-suk. 
The Masai country, so called, may be said to include 
the area lying between 1° N. lat., and 5° S. In breadth 
it is very irregular ; but if we say that the average is 
90 miles, we shall be pretty near the truth. In this, 
however, we are including several isolated areas occupied 
either by tribes wholly different from the Masai, or by 
the agricultural Wa-kwafi, who are mere offshoots of 
the Masai. 
The rainfall is very small over the greater part of this 
large area. Only an approximate guess, of course, can 
be given — but I think I am within the mark in placing 
the rainfall of the lower desert region at fifteen inches, 
and the higher plateau areas at from thirty to forty 
inches in the year. During the fourteen months in 
which I travelled in that region my caravan was not 
caught ten times on the march by rain, — a striking con- 
trast to my experience in the region further south, where, 
for weeks together, rain was incessant. The rains are 
almost entirely confined to February, March, and April. 
The consequence of this insignificant rainfall ds, as we 
have seen, that the lower plains are practically desert, 
