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ch. ix] THE MAU ESCARPMENT 
pitch camp comfortably ; then the waggons 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 difficult 
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 willing, good-humoured fellows, strong as bulls, 
in forethought they are of the grasshopper type; and 
all but a few exhausted 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 colours ; 
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 left the tree-clad mountain side hung above us ; 
ravines, with mimosas clustering in them, sundered the 
foothills, and wound until they joined into what looked 
like rivers ; the thick grass grew waist-high. It looked 
