Here we camped in the valley of Lengeetoto.

This valley is one of the most beautiful and secluded in this part of
Africa. It is shaped like an ellipse, five or six miles long by about
three miles wide, and is completely surrounded by mountains. The
ramparts of the western side--those forming the walls of the Fourth
Bench--rise in sheer rock cliffs, forest crowned. To the east, from
which direction we had just come, were high, rounded mountains. At
sunrise they cut clear in an outline of milky slate against the sky.

The floor of this ellipse was surfaced in gentle undulations, like the
low swells of a summer sea. Between each swell a singing, clear-watered
brook leapt and dashed or loitered through its jungle. Into the
mountains ran broad upward-flung valleys of green grass; and groves of
great forest trees marched down cañons and out a short distance into the
plains. Everything was fresh and green and cool. We needed blankets at
night, and each morning the dew was cool and sparkling, and the sky very
blue. Underneath the forest trees of the stream beds and the cañon were
leafy rooms as small as a closet, or great as cathedral aisles. And in
the short brush dwelt rhinoceros and impalla; in the jungles were
buffalo and elephant; on the plains we saw giraffe, hartebeeste, zebra,
duiker; and in the bases of the hills we heard at evening and early
morning the roaring of lions.

In this charming spot we lingered eight days. Memba Sasa and I spent
most of our time trying to get one of the jungle-dwelling buffalo
without his getting us. In this we were finally successful.[26] Then, as
it was about time for C. to return, we moved back to V.'s boma on the
Narossara; relaying, as usual, the carrying of our effects. At this time
I had had to lay off three more men on account of various sorts of