Across the river to our
left were huge riven mountains, with great cliffs and canons. As we
followed necessarily every twist and turn of the river, sometimes these
mountains were directly ahead of us, then magically behind, so that we
thought we had passed them by. But the next hour threw them again across
our trail. The ideal path would, of course, have cut across all the
bends and ridges; but the thorn of the ridges and the elephant-grass of
the flats forbade it. So we marched ten miles to gain four.
After days of struggle and deception we passed those mountains. Then we
entered a new type of country where the Tsavo ran in canons between
hills. The high cliffs often towered far above us; we had to pick our
way along narrow river ledges; again the river ran like a trout stream
over riffles and rapids, while we sauntered along cleared banks beneath
the trees. Had we not been making a forced march under terrific heat at
just that time, this last phase of the river might have been the
pleasantest of all.
Throughout the whole course of our journey the rhinoceros was the most
abundant of the larger animals. The indications of old tracks proved
that at some time of the year, or under some different conditions, great
herds of the more gregarious plains antelope and zebra visited the
river, but at the time of our visit they were absent. The rhinoceroses,
however, in incredible numbers came regularly to water.
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