The smooth, undulating green-grass plains were now
superseded by lava expanses grown with low bushes. It was almost exactly
like the sage-brush deserts of Arizona and New Mexico--the same coarse
sand and lava footing, the same deeply eroded barrancas, the same
scattered round bushes dotted evenly over the scene. We saw here very
little game. Across the way lay another range of low mountains clothed
darkly with dull green, like the chaparral-covered coast ranges of
California. In one place was a gunsight pass through which we could see
other distant blue mountains. We crossed the arid plain and toiled up
through the notch pass.
The latter made very difficult footing indeed, for the entire surface of
the ground was covered with smooth, slippery boulders and rocks of iron
and quartz. What had so smoothed them I do not know, for they seemed to
be ill-placed for water erosion. The boys with their packs atop found
this hard going, and we ourselves slipped and slid and bumped in spite
of our caution.
Once through the pass we found ourselves overlooking a wide prospect of
undulating thorn scrub from which rose occasional bushy hills, solitary
buttes, and bold cliffs. It was a thick-looking country to make a way
through.
Nevertheless somewhere here dwelt the Kudu, so in we plunged. The rest
of the day--and of days to follow--we spent in picking a way through the
thorn scrub and over loose rocks and shifting stones.
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