The projected
all-night journey had again been frustrated by the lions. These beasts
had proved so bold and menacing that finally the team had been forced to
stop in sheer self-defence. However, the day was cool and overcast, so
nothing was lost.
After topping the Mau we saw a few gazelle, zebra, and hartebeeste, but
soon plunged into a bush country quite destitute of game. We were
paralleling the highest ridge of the escarpment, and so alternated
between the crossing of canons and the travelling along broad ridges
between them. In lack of other amusement for a long time I rode with the
wagon. The country was very rough and rocky. Everybody was excited to
the point of frenzy, except the wagon. It had a certain Dutch stolidity
in its manner of calmly and bumpily surmounting such portions of the
landscape as happened in its way.
After a very long, tiresome march we camped above a little stream.
Barring our lucky rain this would have been the first water since
leaving the Kedong River. Here were hundreds of big blue pigeons
swooping in to their evening drink.
For two days more we repeated this sort of travel, but always with good
camps at fair-sized streams. Gradually we slanted away from the main
ridge, though we still continued cross-cutting the swells and ravines
thrown off its flanks. Only the ravines hour by hour became shallower,
and the swells lower and broader.
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