As the former lord of the land[5] was deprived of his rights, so the same fate, more or less, befalls the splendid animal world that lends its charm to these solitudes. But then--ten years ago! I had been given back to life after sharp suffering, and all that I was now allowed to see in such rich abundance spoke to me in a more than ordinarily impressive language, a language that seemed to me to have an enduring charm. And how clearly must this language have sounded in the times of the primitive past! So we may here attempt a picture of the wild life of the lake margin in former days, on the lines of the sketches I have already traced out of the life and activity of the wild herds of the plateau, as I still could see them.... Out of the many memories of those days, that still work on me like magic, there is one above all that has a special meaning, for me: “Elelescho!” But what is “Elelescho”? the reader will ask. “Elelescho”[6] is the name of a peculiar plant, perhaps it would be more correct to say a bush, that has in many ways set its mark on the flora in the very heart of the Masai region. Ranges of hills covered with silvery-leafed Elelescho, the spicy smell of Elelescho, the water at the camping place redolent of Elelescho--and also, in consequence, tea, coffee, cocoa tasting of Elelescho--that is a memory that remains fixed firmly in one’s thoughts of this home of the wild herds and of the Masai. It Was these disappearing nomads who gave the bush its beautiful name. Possibly the musical sound of the name has not a little to do with reconciling us in memory to the plant. For the bush itself has in process of time monotonous effect not very to the senses, but for this very reason all the stronger and more enduring. Its character is connected by strong links of memory with our experiences of those days, and the sound of its name awakes rose-coloured recollections. For just as it is not given to man to remember exactly the nature of intense bodily pains, so fancy, looking backwards, kindly blots out much that was hard and little that was pleasant in the life we have led. Thus it is that this strange bush, with its silver-grey leaves and aromatic odour, is capable, as hardly anything else is, of awakening in the mind of the traveller a kind of nostalgia--nostalgia for the wilderness, to which he is drawn by so much of beauty and of hardship. We have gained very little by learning that botanists recognise our plant as one of the Compositæ, and name it _Tarchonantus camphoratus_, L. It is to be found also in other parts of Africa; and Professor Fritsch reported, as early as 1863, that he found it growing in Griqualand, then still an unsettled country, where it was called the “Mohatla.” It would be a pity if its beautifully sounding Masai name were not preserved for future times, and I must do my best to save “Elelescho” from such oblivion. [Illustration: _C. G. Schillings, phot._ THE CARAVAN ON THE MARCH.]