“Look here,” said he to me, “you’ve got to sit next that rotter.  We want him to bring us back some water from the other side, and I’d break his neck in ten minutes.  You sit next him and give him your motor car patter.”

Therefore I took the middle seat and played chorus.  The road was not a bad one, as natural mountain roads go; I have myself driven worse in California.  Our man, however, liked to exaggerate all the difficulties, and while doing it to point to himself with pride as a perfect wonder.  Between times he talked elementary mechanics.

“The inflammation of the sparkling plugs?” was one of his expressions that did much to compensate.

The country mounted steadily through the densest thorn scrub I have ever seen.  It was about fifteen feet high, and so thick that its penetration, save by made tracks, would have been an absolute impossibility.  Our road ran like a lane between two spiky jungles.  Bold bright mountains cropped up, singly and in short ranges, as far as the eye could see them.

This sort of thing for twenty miles—­more than a hard day’s journey on safari.  We made it in a little less than two hours; and the breeze of our going kept us reasonably cool under our awning.  We began to appreciate the real value of our diplomacy.

At noon we came upon a series of unexpectedly green and clear small hills just under the frown of a sheer rock cliff.  This oasis in the thorn was occupied by a few scattered native huts and the usual squalid Indian dukka, or trading store.  At this last our German friend stopped.  From under the seat he drew out a collapsible table and a basket of provisions.  These we were invited to share.  Diplomacy’s highest triumph!

After lunch we surmounted our first steep grade to the top of a ridge.  This we found to be the beginning of a long elevated plateau sweeping gently downward to a distant heat mist, which later experience proved a concealment to snowcapped Kilimanjaro.  This plateau also looked to be covered with scrub.  As we penetrated it, however, we found the bushes were more or less scattered, while in the wide, shallow dips between the undulations were open grassy meadows.  There was no water.  Isolated mountains or peaked hills showed here and there in the illimitable spaces, some of them fairly hull down, all of them toilsomely distant.  This was the Serengetti itself.

In this great extent of country somewhere were game herds.  They were exceedingly migratory, and nobody knew very much about them.  One of the species would be the rare and localized fringe-eared oryx.  This beast was the principal zoological end of our expedition; though, of course, as always, we hoped for a chance lion.  Geographically we wished to find the source of the Swanee River, and to follow that stream down to its joining with the Tsavo.  About half-past one we passed our safari boys.  We had intended to stop and replenish their canteens from our water-drums; but they told us they had encountered a stray and astonishing shower, and did not need more.  We left them trudging cheerfully across the desert.  They had travelled most of the night before, would do the same in the night to come, and should reach our camping-place about noon of the next day.