When we reached the top a beautiful and welcome sight met our weary eyes. Away to the right, curving round the end of the range, ran the dark green line of the Waso Nyiro. A day’s march further on it branched out into numerous broad shallow channels, spreading over a tract of country perhaps ten miles long and four miles wide. Innumerable Doum palms covered this tract with a beautiful mass of greenery, interspersed with patches of pure white sand. Immediately outside the palm region the country changed sharply to desert again, which stretched dazzlingly white and perfectly level to the encircling horizon. I had no doubt but that we should find the Rendili encamped near the palms. The river emerged from the other side of this fertile tract, and winding round the southern spur of a vast and lofty tableland, which showed dimly in the distance, disappeared from view on its way to the mysterious and unexplored “Lorian.” The plateau I recognized as the Marisi el Lugwazambo. It can be imagined with what joyful emotions we gazed on the mass of vivid green spread at our feet, after so many scorching days of brown earth and bare rock. I could quite realize the sensations of Moses as he gazed on the “Promised Land” from the summit of Mount Pisgah. It was almost time, too, that we reached our long-desired goal. Our men had not enjoyed a full meal since El Hakim shot the rhinoceros four days before, and they were almost famished. We ourselves were little better off, having tasted nothing for two days but a few miserable M’wele cakes, no larger than a five-shilling piece. We could not stop on the summit of the hill for an indefinite period, however, much as we admired the view—our needs were too imperative; so with a last long look at the beautiful scene, we turned and cast about for a path by which to descend to the plain below. To our dismay, we discovered that the cliff dropped sheer down for two hundred feet without foothold enough for a goat. After trying two or three places without success, we were eventually compelled to force our way along the crest of the ridge, in the hope of finding some sort of path nearer the river. It was a terrible scramble, and I should think it very unlikely that even natives had ever been on to the top before—certainly no white man ever had. The wait-a-bit thorns grew together in an almost impenetrable wall, necessitating constant work with our knives to free ourselves. Great boulders barred our progress, and gravel and pebbles slipped under our feet, so that by the time we had covered a mile we were tired out. [Illustration: PALMS ON THE WASO NYIRO.]