ABSTRACT
In 1961, the author travelled into the hot desert wastes of what was then the Northern Frontier District of Kenya Colony and Protectorate and saw a great salt lake called Rudolf. Enormous, aggressive crocodiles patrolled the shallows along the lake's shores, and warring pastoralists and armed poachers roamed the rocky hills. Lake Rudolf, which is also known as Lake Turkana, lies in the eastern arm of the great Rift Valley. Although Lake Rudolf primarily lies in Kenya, a portion of its northern end stretches across the border into Ethiopia. However, other Europeans were also intrigued by this lake, among them Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary, who encouraged Count Samuel Teleki to find it. European colonial interest in Lake Rudolf developed at a time when Ethiopia was emerging as a powerful military state engaged in imperial expansion. All of the travellers to Lake Rudolf were bold, resourceful, and unorthodox men well endowed with originality and eccentricity.
