shining hotly upon us; and, throwing back a last glance at Mombasa lying
picturesquely behind us, we bade farewell to the sea foaming below, whose
dull roar could be distinctly heard despite a distance of four or five
miles. To the sound of horns and drums we scaled the steep though not very
high hills that separated us from the so-called desert which lay between us
and the interior. The region, which we soon reached, evidently deserves the
name of desert only in the hot season; now, when the three months' rainy
season was scarcely over, we found the landscape park-like. Rich, though
not very high, grass alternated with groves of mimosa and dwarf palm and
with clumps of acacia. When, after a march of two hours, we had left the
last of the coast hills behind us, the grass became more luxuriant and the
trees more numerous, and taller; antelopes showed themselves in the
distance, but they were very shy and were soon scared away by the dogs,
which were not yet broken of the habit of useless hunting. About eleven
o'clock we halted for rest and refreshment in the shade of a palm-grove
which a dense mass of climbing plants had converted into a stately giant
canopy. All--men and beasts--were exhausted, though we had been scarcely
three hours on the march; the previous running and racing about in camp for
four hours had been the reverse of refreshing to us, and after ten o'clock
the heat had become most oppressive. Johnston comforted us by saying that
it would be better in future. In the first place, we should henceforth be
less time in getting ready to march, and should therefore start earlier--if
it depended upon him, soon after four--doing the greatest part of the way
in the cool of the morning, and halting at nine, or at the latest at ten.
Moreover, the district we were now going through was the hottest, if not
the most difficult, we should have to travel over; when we had once got
into the higher regions we should be troubled by excessive heat only
exceptionally.

Reinvigorated by this encouragement, and more still by a generous meal--the