The headwater country is most beautiful The stream is not over ten feet wide, but very deep, swift, and clear.  It flows between defined banks and is set in a narrow strip of jungle.  In places the bed widens out to a carpet of the greenest green grass sown with flowers; at other places it offers either mysterious thickets, spacious cathedrals, or snug bowers.  Immediately beyond the edge of this river jungle begins the thorn scrub, more or less dense.  Distant single mountains or buttes serve as landmarks in a brush-grown, gently rising, strongly rolling country.  Occasional alluvial flats draw back to low cliffs not over twenty feet high.

After the junction of the Tsavo, palms of various sorts replace to a large extent the forest trees.  Naturally also the stream widens and flows more slowly.  Outside the palms grow tall elephant-grass and bush.  Our marching had generally to be done in the narrow, neutral space between these two growths.  It was pleasant enough, with the river snatching at the trailing branches, and the birds and animals rustling away.  Beyond the elephant-grass flats low ridges ran down to the river, varying in width, but carrying always with them the dense thorn.  Between them ran recesses, sometimes three or four hundred acres in extent, high with elephant-grass or little trees like alders.  So much for the immediate prospect on our right as we marched.  Across the river to our left were huge riven mountains, with great cliffs and canons.  As we followed necessarily every twist and turn of the river, sometimes these mountains were directly ahead of us, then magically behind, so that we thought we had passed them by.  But the next hour threw them again across our trail.  The ideal path would, of course, have cut across all the bends and ridges; but the thorn of the ridges and the elephant-grass of the flats forbade it.  So we marched ten miles to gain four.

After days of struggle and deception we passed those mountains.  Then we entered a new type of country where the Tsavo ran in canons between hills.  The high cliffs often towered far above us; we had to pick our way along narrow river ledges; again the river ran like a trout stream over riffles and rapids, while we sauntered along cleared banks beneath the trees.  Had we not been making a forced march under terrific heat at just that time, this last phase of the river might have been the pleasantest of all.

Throughout the whole course of our journey the rhinoceros was the most abundant of the larger animals.  The indications of old tracks proved that at some time of the year, or under some different conditions, great herds of the more gregarious plains antelope and zebra visited the river, but at the time of our visit they were absent.  The rhinoceroses, however, in incredible numbers came regularly to water.  Paradoxically, we saw very few of them, and enjoyed comparative immunity from their charges.  This was due to the fact that their habits and ours swung