That in the grey antiquity the Egyptians penetrated to the sources of their holy river (it may be remarked in passing that the Ripon falls, where the Nile flows out of the Victoria Nyanza, are in clear weather very plainly to be seen from the Elgon) has nothing in it so remarkable, even though modern historical investigation has not been able to find any trace of it. But wherever the Egyptians penetrated, and particularly wherever they built, one is accustomed to find unmistakable traces of their activity. It behoved us, therefore, to search for such traces, and then to discover what the Pharaohs of the ancient dynasties had sought for here. Our researches were successful as to the first object, but not as to the second. In two places, unfortunately outside of the entrances to the caves in question, where atmospheric and perhaps other influences had been destructively at work, there were found conically pointed basalt prisms, which exhibited unmistakable traces of hieroglyphic writing. These inscriptions were no longer legible; and though our Egyptologists, as well as those of London and Paris, agreed in thinking that the inscription on one stone distinctly referred to the goddess Hathor, this view is rather the verdict of a kind of archaeological instinct than a conclusion based upon tangible evidence. That the stones bore Egyptian inscriptions, and had stood for thousands of years at the entrances to these caves, was plain enough, even to the eyes of laymen. Parenthetically it may be remarked that this discovery throws light upon the origin of the Masai, of whom it has already been said that they were not negroes, but a bronze-coloured race showing the Hamitic type. Plainly the Masai are Egyptians, who, in a forgotten past, were cut off from the rest in the highlands south of the Baringo lake. Their martial habits would suggest descent from the ancient Egyptian warrior caste, possibly from those discontented warriors who, twenty-five centuries ago, in the days of Psammetichus I., migrated to Ethiopia, when Pharaoh had offended them by the employment of Greek mercenaries.