124 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
although I enjoyed seeing a crowd of vultures squabbling over 
the remains of some animal which the lions had left after having 
had their fill. 
The clarity of the atmosphere at this altitude was extraordinary 
and Mount Kilimanjaro (19,700 feet) with its snow-capped peak 
could be seen distinctly at a distance of a hundred miles from the 
train; from the Aberdare Mountains, where I later did my col- 
lecting, it could be seen at about a hundred and eighty miles 
distant. After crossing the Athi Plains the line reaches Nairobi 
(5,500 feet), the capital of Kenya Colony, at their western ex- 
tremity. 
Here I got in touch with the Game Department and met 
Captain Ritchie, the Chief Warden, who did everything to help 
me. Some friends of his, Major and Mrs. Ward, from the Aber- 
dare Mountains, were arriving the following day and he arranged 
to give me an introduction. I found them, as I did the majority 
of the Kenya settlers, most charming and hospitable. They agreed, 
there and then, for me to stay as long as I wished on their farm at 
eighty-five hundred feet, at the base of Kinangop Mountain. By 
their description of the place it seemed ideal, and having waited 
for them to return by car, I set off by train for Naivasha, the 
nearest station. This is the direction for Uganda and the line, on 
leaving Nairobi, rises rapidly to seven thousand feet to the Kenya 
Highlands, where nearly all the white settlers are situated, grow- 
ing coffee and maize, etc., and ranching. 
After a while one sees the great Rift Valley, a deep trough in 
the earth, formed in the days when Africa was dotted with active 
volcanoes and evidently caused by the shrinkage or collapse of 
the earth’s crust for a very great distance. It can be traced for 
hundreds of miles, some parts being rather ill-defined owing to 
subsequent volcanic action. In some places the Rift Valley is 
bordered by escarpments with an almost sheer rise of a thousand 
feet and is upwards of twenty miles across. The country now 
becomes full of interest, as bird-life is much in evidence and shows 
considerable variation according to altitude. After following the 
edge of the escarpment for some distance the line descends to the 
Rift Valley by a tortuous course, and then reaches Lake Naivasha. 
From here I had to journey about twenty-five miles north to the 
