We bought two bullocks, a sheep, and a goat, and, with our guides ahead, our entire _safari_ of over a hundred souls turned toward the grim heights that shot up before us.
[Drawing: _Up to the Rim of the Crater_] The trail for the first thousand feet of ascent was steep and hard to climb.

The rocks high above us were specked with natives, who gazed down in wonder at the strange spectacle.

These were the cave-dwellers.

After an hour or more we reached the crest of the rim and then continued through elephant grass ten feet high, then dense forest, and finally through miles of clean, cool, shadowy bamboos--always steadily climbing.
The trail was fairly good and our progress was encouraging.
[Photograph: In the Belt of Bamboo] [Photograph: Giant Cactus Growth In the Crater] [Photograph: Up Twelve Thousand Feet in the Crater] There were many elephant pits in the bamboo forest, but they were all ancient ones, half-filled with decayed leaves and obviously unused for half a century or more.

From some of them fairly large-sized trees had grown.