We were almost tempted to boycott them by stopping eating meat for two months.
They also seemed reluctant to let us have guides to take us up to the caves and none of them seemed to know the trails that led up into the forests and the heights of the mountain.

It was evident that only a few ever had been up the mountain upon the slopes of which they had spent their lives.
[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D.Boyce.

At the Entrance of the Great Cave] [Photograph: There Were Granaries in the Cave] [Photograph: In One of the Elgon Caves] We began to think that they wanted us to stay in their village just so they could have the pleasure of their daily _shauris_.
Finally one sultan promised to get us guides and accepted a generous present on the strength of it; but when the time came he failed to produce them.

It was at precisely this point, to be strictly accurate, that we abandoned the polite phraseology of the court and told him with many exclamation points that he would have to guide us himself or we would take steps to dethrone him.

Of course, all of this had to be strained through two interpreters, but even then I think he caught the gist of it.