MOUNT KENIA 
283 
CH. X] 
graceful palms, and there were groves of tree-ferns here 
and there on the sides of the gorges. 
On the afternoon of the second day we struck upward 
among the steep foot-hills of the mountain, riven by 
deep ravines. We pitched camp in an open glade, 
surrounded by the green wall of tangled forest, the 
forest of the tropical mountain-sides. 
The trees, strange of kind and endless in variety, 
grew tall and close, laced together by vine and creeper, 
while underbrush crowded the space between their 
mossy trunks, and covered the leafy mould beneath. 
Towards dusk crested ibis flew overhead with harsh 
clamour, to seek their night roosts ; parrots chattered, 
and a curiously home-like touch was given by the 
presence of a thrush in colour and shape almost exactly 
like our robin. Monkeys called in the depths of the 
forest, and after dark tree-frogs piped and croaked, and 
the tree-hyraxes uttered their wailing cries. 
Elephants dwelt permanently in this mountainous 
region of heavy woodland. On our march thither we 
had already seen their traces in the “ shambas,” as the 
cultivated fields of the natives are termed ; for the great 
beasts are fond of raiding the crops at night, and their 
inroads often do serious damage. In this neighbourhood 
their habit is to live high up in the mountains, in the 
bamboos, while the weather is dry: the cows and calves 
keeping closer to the bamboos than the bulls. A spell 
of wet weather, such as we had fortunately been having, 
drives them down in the dense forest which covers the 
lower slopes. Here they may either pass all their time, 
or at night they may go still further down, into the open 
valley where the shambas lie ; or they may occasionally 
still do what they habitually did in the days before the 
white hunters came, and wander far away, making 
