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.

We ourselves stopped about four o'clock. In a few hours we had come a
hard three days' march. Over the side went our goods. We bade the German
a very affectionate farewell; for he was still to fill our drums from
one of the streams out of Kilimanjaro and deliver them to us on his
return trip next day. We then all turned to and made camp. The scrub