A spring emerged from the earth here, perhaps the same stream we had followed in the morning, and which had so disappointed us by suddenly disappearing. The water was quite warm, and impregnated with mineral salts; so much so as to be almost undrinkable. It welled up into a hole in the rocks about 20 feet long and 12 feet wide by 4 feet deep, forming a lovely natural bath, overgrown with varicoloured mosses and ferns. The overflow meandered through the grass for 100 yards or so in a little stream a foot deep with a pebbly bottom fringed by dark green rushes, and then spread out into a swamp overgrown with tall papyrus reeds 10 or 12 feet high. There were two or three acres of good green grass on one side of the swamp, to which our animals rushed with whinnies of delight the instant they caught sight of it, and ate and ate as if they would never stop. We crossed this little stream, and pitched the tents under some large thorn trees. We christened the place “Green Camp.” It was about 3500 feet above sea-level, and over 1000 feet lower than M’thara. There was a splendid specimen of the Doum palm on the other side of the camp, which can be seen in the photograph of the Green camp. The Doum palm (_Hyphæne Thebaica_) is called m’lala by the Swahilis. It is a very graceful palm, and grows to a great height on the Waso Nyiro, and was to be found everywhere along the banks of the river. The stem divides into two branches a few feet from the ground, each branch again and again dividing and being crowned with its canopy of broad, flat, fan-shaped leaves. The fruit, about the size of a potato, is mostly hard uneatable kernel, with a layer of moist fibre, about half an inch thick, contained in a reddish bitter rind. It reminds one of eating chopped cocoanut fibre, with a sweetish, slightly astringent flavour. George and I ate quantities of it later on, as also did the men, when we were without other vegetables. While we were pitching the tents a rhinoceros emerged from among the papyrus, where he had been wallowing in the swamp, and trotted towards us. A shout soon caused him to change his mind, and off he went full gallop for the Waso Nyiro, which, I should have remarked, was about half a mile distant. The country outside the camp was covered in places with large white patches of mineral salts, principally carbonate of soda and sulphate of magnesia; but we searched in vain for any common salt. There was very little soil, and the men who were driving in the tent-pegs struck rock three or four inches below the surface. A violent gale of wind came on at sundown, and it needed the most extraordinary precautions, in the way of extra guy-ropes to the tents, to prevent them being blown bodily away.