After leaving our late camp we plunged once again into the thorn forest, which we soon crossed, emerging into the sparsely vegetated highland I have mentioned before as extending to the northward. The sun was very hot, and travelling slow and laborious, not so much from the nature of the ground, perhaps, as from the soft condition of the men after their long rest. The ground, nevertheless, made walking a wearisome task, as the loose pebbles and quartz blocks turned our ankles and bruised our shins. [Illustration: THE AUTHOR MAKING BLOOD-BROTHERHOOD WITH KARAMA.] [Illustration: THE “GREEN CAMP.” (See page 162.)] After two hours’ toiling we found ourselves on the edge of the tableland looking down a sharp declivity to the plain beneath, which stretched out in desolate barrenness as far as the eye could reach. It was a dreary khaki-coloured landscape, with peculiarly shaped hills in the extreme background. In the middle distance were belts of dusty-looking thorn trees, while here and there mounds of broken lava reared up their ugly masses to add to the general air of desolation. Somewhere ahead of us, about four days’ march, was the Waso Nyiro; and beyond that lay the desert again, stretching away up towards Lakes Rudolph and Stephanie, and thence onward to the hills of Abyssinia and Somaliland. The country we should have to cross in order to reach the Waso Nyiro was, as far as we knew, waterless, with the exception of one tiny brook, which flowed northward from M’thara, probably emptying itself into the Waso Nyiro. We followed it, therefore, in all its multitudinous windings, as, without it, we should have been in a sorry plight indeed. As we descended to the plain the heat appreciably increased. We met several rhinoceros on the road, but we discreetly left them to their meditations. Apparently there had once been grass on the plain, but it had been burnt, and during the passage of our safari a fine, choking black dust arose, which, in combination with the dust from the dry red soil, formed a horrible compound that choked up our ears, eyes, noses, and throats in a most uncomfortable manner. For four hours we marched, and then camped on the banks of the stream. Innumerable rhino tracks crossed in every direction, leading us to suppose that we were camped at the place where the brutes usually drank. George, hearing the shrill cries of some guinea-fowl from the opposite bank, sallied forth with the shot-gun, and soon the sound of many shots in quick succession showed that his energy was reaping its reward. He returned presently with eight birds, which were a very welcome addition to our larder.