208 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
intended to spend some time. The first two days were 
easy travelling, the porters not being pressed and there 
being plenty of time in the afternoons to pitch camp com¬ 
fortably; then the wagons left us with their loads of hides 
and skeletons and spare baggage. The third day we rose long 
before dawn, breakfasted, broke camp, and were off just 
at sunrise. There was no path; at one time we followed 
game trails, at another the trails made by the Masai sheep 
and cattle, and again we might make our own trail. We 
had two Masai guides, tireless runners, as graceful and 
sinewy as panthers; they helped us; but Cuninghame 
had to do most of the pathfinding himself. It was a diffi¬ 
cult country, passable only at certain points, which it was 
hard to place with exactness. We had seen that each porter 
had his water bottle full before starting; but, though will- 
ing, good-humored fellows, strong as bulls, in forethought 
they are of the grasshopper type; and all but a few ex¬ 
hausted their supply by mid-afternoon. At this time we 
were among bold mountain ridges, and here we struck 
the kraal of some Masai, who watered their cattle at some 
spring pools, three miles to one side, up a valley. It was too 
far for the heavily laden porters; but we cantered our horses 
thither and let them drink their fill; and then cantered along 
the trail left by the safari until we overtook the rear men just 
as they were going over the brink of the Mau escarpment. 
The scenery was wild and beautiful; in the open places 
the ground was starred with flowers of many colors; we 
rode under vine-tangled archways through forests of strange 
trees. 
Down the steep mountain side went the safari, and at 
its foot struck off nearly parallel to the high ridge. On our 
