of the dhum palms which outlined the course of the
Guaso Nyiro. Immediately upon leaving Daitcho our
donkeys exhibited signs of sickness, and by the time
we reached this point, seven of them had died. When
we set out a few days before, each one of them appeared
fat and lusty; and we thought we had at length rid
ourselves of the disease which had deprived us of so
many beasts of burden. We had thirty of them left,
and ten head of cattle; so we were not downcast,
as we trusted the assurances of our guide, that he
would soon take
us to people who
would lead us
to the Rendile,
where we could
purchase more
beasts of burden.
While at this
camp, Lieutenant
von Hohnel
killed a rhinoceros,
and one of the Soudanese, while on watch in the
early morning, shot an oryx beisa; so I decided to
rest here another day. Large herds of zebra (chap-
mani) roamed in the immediate neighbourhood of the
camp; so near, in fact, that we were able to take photographs
of them.
. While upon the subject of photographs, I may say
that we had taken with us two cameras: one of small
size made in Paris, which took a negative four by
five inches, and could be used without a tripod; and
another, much larger, which took a negative seven by
eight inches. For the latter we.had three lenses, one
for landscape, another, a rectilinear, and the third, teleobjective.
The latter is a very useful invention, and
with it one is able to take photographs at great distances,
as the lens possesses magnifying power. We
had 900 plates with us, and took over 500 photographs
during our journey; but on account of the poor quality
of the water we did not deem it well to try the development
of these plates in the interior. So we carefully
packed and soldered them in air-tight tins, and, as
opportunity occurred, we shipped instalments of them
to Europe, where they were developed by Mr. Thomson,
of London. Unfortunately, more than one-half
of our plates turned out poorly, and from these, of
course, Mr. Thomson was unable to get good results.
This may have been due to faulty packing; or, what
is more probable, to the fact that the gelatine upon
the plates may have decomposed, as they were kept
for a long time before developing —-r some of the negatives
having been kept nearly two years.
Whenever occasion offered, Lieutenant von Hohnel
made use of the photographic apparatus, and it is a
matter of deepest regret that we were unable to preserve
more of the plates in sufficiently good condition
to obtain worthy results. It is difficult to obtain good
results from photography on one of these journeys, as
the opportunities for giving attention to development
are few, when the caravan is on the march. Upon
my former journey I carried a small kodak and took,
with some pains, and not a little danger, 100 photographs
of camp scenes, natives, and big game. What
was my disgust, upon reaching Europe and delivering