VI 
RETURN TO MOMBASA 
129 
declined, as is my invariable rule. I always explained, when 
importuned in this way, that I had come to shoot elephants, 
not men ; and that until attacked, or unless my friends should 
be so while I was with them, I desired peace with all. 
There is nothing in the shape of a plateau, such as one 
sometimes reads of, at the foot of Kenia, though it has a broad 
base and the slopes are on a gentle gradient. Between the 
cultivation and the virgin forest is some beautiful pasture land, 
where the timber has evidently been cleared and the land 
cultivated and afterwards abandoned. It was here that we 
made our camp for about a week. Numerous little streams, 
cold and limpid, run down between the undulations. This is 
a charming bit of country ; but I could not keep warm at 
night, do what I would. Hoar frost was on the grass every 
morning, and the wood, though abundant, would not burn. 
The forest is very beautiful, and contains many fine timber 
trees. The trunk of one that I measured girthed about 
15 feet and was straight as a dart for at least 60 feet. 
It was here that I met with the very handsome monkey with 
a white collar, which, it appears, has been named Cercopithecus 
albotorquatus , from a specimen the locality of which was 
unknown. A large yellow monkey, which I had seen on the 
slopes above our Christmas camp, but of which I was unable to 
obtain a specimen, seemed quite different from any I had ever 
met with, and may probably be new. To these latter I was 
attracted by their peculiar, rather musical, hooting cry— 
reminding me somewhat of the call (distinct from its bark) of 
the wild dog ;—but I failed to get a shot at one. In the 
forest were, as usual in such localities, many scarlet-winged 
plantain-eaters and big black and white hornbills. A pair of 
the latter had their nest in a hole high up the trunk of a 
large tree close to our camp. The male used to feed his 
mate (which must have been sitting) through the aperture 
—at least that is how I construed their behaviour. Among 
many rare butterflies that I obtained here, Miss Bowdler 
K 
