VII 
SECOND EXPEDITION 
163 
by one. “My beautiful ‘ pundas ’ 1 are looking so well too,” I 
wrote, “sleek and fat, and not one touched on the back ! It is 
too cruel to lose them like this, after all my care” However, 
I did not lose many more, and, when they once stopped dying, 
I felt hopeful, as I knew all that had not become inoculated 
with the “ fly ” poison were now safe. 
This time I went down into the crater, already mentioned 
in connection with the previous journey as being one of the 
camping-places on this route. We pitched our camp in the 
wide road—like an artificial cutting through its edge—by 
which it is entered, and I descended into the great cup-like 
interior. The pool had plenty of water in it now, and, by 
digging out a little spring in the mud close to its edge, a good 
supply of fresh water could be obtained. On our return 
journey, though, after a long dry spell, the pool was nearly 
dry, and what water was left in it was red, as if mixed with 
blood. The spring then gave out but a feeble trickle, and 
would, I should suspect, fail altogether if the drought continued. 
There is always a gale blowing here, and as pegs cannot be 
driven, one’s tent ropes have to be weighted with many heavy 
boulders to make it stand securely. Even at the bottom of 
the deep circular crater, where one would think no breath of 
wind could reach, tremendous gusts and eddies sweep round, 
now one way and now another, carrying away one’s clothes if 
you should have undressed for your bath there in order to save 
the men the toil of carrying so much water up the long, steep 
ascent. Baboons seem the only creatures that inhabit the basin, 
though I saw what I took to be a klipspringer on the top of the 
high rim. 
I again, after crossing the Gwaso Nyiro, took the route 
through the pass under the mountain called Gwargess (at the 
southern end of the Mathews range) in the hope of getting 
news of elephants in that district. But they had already left 
the neighbourhood, which they only frequent during the rains ; 
1 Swahili for donkey. 
