CHAPTER XVII 
UP AND DOWN THE MOUNTAIN SIDE FROM THE KE- 
TOSH VILLAGE TO THE GREAT CAVE OF BATS. A 
DRAMATIC EPISODE WITH THE FINDING 
OF A BLACK BABY AS A CLIMAX 
For days we had heard of wonderful places higher 
up in the mountain. The information had been so 
vague and uncertain we hardly knew whether to 
credit the reports or simply put them down as na¬ 
tive folk lore or superstition. One night we inter¬ 
viewed Askar, one of the Somali gunbearers. 
He said he had been up the mountain a year or 
two before with a Frenchman who wanted to see 
the mysterious natural wonders of Mount Elgon. 
The Frenchman had to threaten to kill his native 
guides before they would consent to lead him up in 
the cold heights of the mountain to show him the 
places that filled the native imagination with such 
fear and superstitious dread. 
There was one place, Askar said, where the water 
boiled out of the ground far, far up in the moun¬ 
tain heights, and any native who looked at it fell 
dead. Askar said he went up and looked at it 
through the glasses, and then ran away. 
All this queer information came out at one of 
our evening camp-fire shauris. The great central 
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