10 
ON SAFARI 
including those few that fall within my own narrow 
limits, to wit—Nakuru, Elmenteita, Naivasha and 
Baringo. 
Eburu was the spot whereat we had decided to 
commence our operations. It is merely the name of 
a rugged volcanic range lying at the verge of the Rift 
at a point where the hills open out upon rolling 
prairie and the basin of the Enderit River. 
Eburu proved an awkward place to encamp, there 
being absolutely neither wood nor water; for both of 
which prime necessaries we were dependent on the 
good-will of the baboo station-master. Since then the 
station has been abandoned, and Eburu has reverted to 
primaeval desolation. 
That first morning in camp, as the grey light 
strengthened to the dawn, we perceived, high overhead 
on the mountain-side, what appeared to be columns of 
smoke. These, for one unhappy moment, suggested 
that other camp-fires desecrated our vale. We were 
reassured on learning that these were geysers—jets of 
steam issuing from fissures in the plutonic rock. No 
other inhabitants, indeed—save baboons, which barked 
and chattered from the rocks above, and others of 
savage nature—abused our solitude. The name Eburu, 
we were told, in the Masai tongue signifies “ steam.” 
Our object in making Eburu our starting-point was 
to obtain here specimens of Chanler’s reedbuck, an 
elusive little antelope that, belying its name and 
abandoning the marshy habitat of its congeners (save 
one), elects to live, chamois-like, on rocks and rugged 
mountain-faces. That one exception is the so-called 
Rhooi rhebolc (Cervicapra fulvorufula) of South 
Africa, which, although a true reedbuck, is also, like 
the present, of mountain-loving habit. 
Chanler’s reedbuck is only a small species, weighing 
some 70 lbs., and was quite abundant on the rocks of 
Eburu; we found it, nevertheless, a most troublesome 
trophy to secure. Its head and neck are tawny yellow, 
yet so precisely does the body-colour assimilate with 
