We moved slowly, but even then our garments were literally dripping wet.

At the end of three miles the stream bed widened. We came upon
beautiful, spacious, open lawns of from eighty to one hundred acres
apiece, separated from each other by narrow strips of tall forest trees.
The grass was high, and waved in the breeze like planted grain; the
boundary trees resembled artificial wind-breaks of eucalyptus or
Normandy poplar. One might expect a white ranch house beyond some low
clump of trees, and chicken runs, and corrals.

Along these apparent boundaries of forest trees our stream divided, and
divided again, so that we were actually looking upon what we had come to
seek--the source of the Swanee branch of the Tsavo River. In these
peaceful, protected meadows was it cradled. From them it sprang full
size out into the African wilderness.

A fine impalla buck grazed in one of these fields. I crept as near him
as I could behind one of the wind-break rows of trees. It was not very
near, and for the second time I missed. Thereupon we decided two things:
that we were not really meat hungry, and that yesterday's hard work was
not conducive to to-day's good shooting.

Having thus accomplished the second object of our expedition, we
returned to camp. From that time begins a regular sequence of events on
which I look back with the keenest of pleasure. The two constant factors
were the river and the great dry country on either side. Day after day
we followed down the one, and we made brief excursions out into the
other. Each night we camped near the sound of the swift running water,
where the winds rustled in the palms, the acacias made lacework across
the skies, and the jungle crouched in velvet blackness close to earth