The Southern Guaso Nyero, unlike its northern namesake, is a sluggish, muddy stream, rather small, flowing between abrupt clay banks.  Farther down it drops into great canons and eroded abysses, and acquires a certain grandeur.  But here, at the ford of Agate’s Drift, it is decidedly unimpressive.  Scant greenery ornaments its banks.  In fact, at most places they run hard and baked to a sheer drop-off of ten or fifteen feet.  Scattered mimosa trees and aloes mark its course.  The earth for a mile or so is trampled by thousands of Masai cattle that at certain seasons pass through the funnel of this, the only ford for miles.  Apparently insignificant, it is given to sudden, tremendous rises.  These originate in the rainfalls of the upper Mau Escarpment, many miles away.  It behooves the safari to cross promptly if it can, and to camp always on the farther bank.

This we did, pitching our tents in a little opening, between clumps of pretty flowering aloes and the mimosas.  Here, as everywhere in this country, until we had passed the barrier of the Narossara mountains, the common horseflies were a plague.  They follow the Masai cattle.  I can give you no better idea of their numbers than to tell you two isolated facts:  I killed twenty-one at one blow; and in the morning, before sunrise, the apex of our tent held a solid black mass of the creatures running the length of the ridge pole, and from half an inch to two inches deep!  Every pack was black with them on the march, and the wagon carried its millions.  When the shadow of a branch would cross that slowly lumbering vehicle, the swarm would rise and bumble around distractedly for a moment before settling down again.  They fairly made a nimbus of darkness.

After we had made camp we saw a number of Masai warriors hovering about the opposite bank, but they did not venture across.  Some of their women did, however, and came cheerily into camp.  These most interesting people are worth more than a casual word, so I shall reserve my observations on them until a later chapter.  One of our porters, a big Baganda named Sabakaki, was suffering severely from pains in the chest that subsequently developed into pleurisy.  From the Masai women we tried to buy some of the milk they carried in gourds; at first they seemed not averse, but as soon as they realized the milk was not for our own consumption, they turned their backs on poor Sabakaki and refused to have anything more to do with us.

These Masai are very difficult to trade with.  Their only willing barter is done in sheep.  These they seem to consider legitimate objects of commerce.  A short distance from our camp stood three whitewashed round houses with thatched, conical roofs, the property of a trader named Agate.  He was away at the time of our visit.

After an early morning, but vain, attempt to get Billy a shot at a lion[22] we set out for our distant blue mountains.  The day was a journey over plains of great variegation.  At times they were covered with thin scrub; at others with small groves; or again, they were open and grassy.  Always they undulated gently, so from their tops one never saw as far as he thought he was going to see.  As landmark we steered by a good-sized butte named Donga Rasha.