THE START—MOMBASA TO TAITA. 
59 
for a drink finding your cistern lies some three or four 
thousand feet above you ! 
With what amount of patience I should have awaited 
the return of the water-carrier I do not know, but 
just at this juncture one of my porters arrived, and 
threw down his burden with a weary sigh. I re¬ 
membered with, joy the contents of the lumpy sack he 
bore, and rapidly untying its mouth took from it 
several cocoanuts. Filling a gourd with their milk, I 
was able to assuage the thirst of myself and my 
servant, who had returned to consciousness, and we 
then passed with equanimity the half-hour that elapsed 
before Mabruki came back from his quest among the 
rocks of Maungu, bearing gourds full of delicious 
water, clear and cool. 
At this camping-place we remained until the 
afternoon of the next day, awaiting the coming in 
of all the laggards; but my patience was at last 
overtaxed, and I resolved to go on with a few 
followers to Ndara, the next camping-spot, where 
we should be in an inhabited country, and with 
pleasanter surroundings, for the vegetation in the 
vicinity of Maungu was singularly forbidding and 
ugly, suggesting some enchanted forest, and, moreover, 
the water-supply proved scanty and difficult of access. 
I left my head-man and a few followers to search for 
the missing men, and walked on to Ndara through 
the moonlight, stopping to sleep for a few hours 
before dawn. In the early morning we began to 
ascend and cross a rocky ridge, and on surmounting 
it looked out westward over the plains or mountain 
plateaux of Taita. Here our sight was gladdened by 
clumps of really green and shady trees, and we were 
further delighted by the first signs of evident culti- 
