Here are the
elephants. Here are the swinging vines, the jungle itself.
Yet finally it breaks. We come out on the edge of things and look
down on a great gash in the earth. It is like a sunken kingdom in
itself, miles wide, with its own mountain ranges, its own rivers,
its own landscape features. Only on either side of it rise the
escarpments which are the true level of the plateau. One can
spend two months in this valley, too, and in the countries south
to which it leads. And on its farther side are the high plateau
plains again, or the forests, or the desert, or the great lakes
that lie at the source of the Nile.
So now, perhaps, we are a little prepared to go ahead. The
guide-book work is finished for good and all. There is the
steaming hot low coast belt, and the hot dry thorn desert belt,
and the varied immense plains, and the high mountain belt of the
forests, and again the variegated wide country of the Rift Valley
and the high plateau. To attempt to tell you seriatim and in
detail just what they are like is the task of an encyclopaedist.
Perhaps more indirectly you may be able to fill in the picture of
the country, the people, and the beasts.
IV. THE FIRST CAMP
Our very first start into the new country was made when we piled
out from the little train standing patiently awaiting the good
pleasure of our descent.
