CHAPTER V 



ON THE UGANDA ROAD 



"At half-past five's Revelly, an' our tents they down must come, 

 Like a lot of button mushrooms when you pick 'em up at 'ome, 

 But it's over in a minute, an' at six the column starts. 

 With its best foot first 

 And the road a-slidin' past, 

 An' every bloomin' campin'-ground exactly like the last." 



Kipling. 



The east coast of Africa has a notorious reputation for 

 unhealthiness. This it has acquired mainly from the reports 

 of the earHer expeditions into the interior, which entered the 

 country by routes to the south of the British possessions. 

 There, an inland plateau is separated from the sea by a broad 

 belt of marshy and malarious lowland, where fever and dysen- 

 tery are rife. Explorers, therefore, had to encounter the most 

 unhealthy part of their journey when they were least prepared 

 for it, and at that date the exact nature of the diseases and 

 the most efficacious remedies were unknown. West of Mombasa, 

 however, the hills come so close to the sea that the worst of 

 the fever belt is absent, and the first day's march ends on the 

 edge of a high plateau. As a matter of fact, the difficulty of 

 the Mombasa road is usually lack of water. In the dry season 

 it is sometimes necessary to make marches of thirty-five, or even 

 fifty-four miles, from one water-hole to the next. This difficulty, 

 encountered at the beginning of the journey, when the loads are 

 at their heaviest, and the men are fresh from the idle life and 

 relaxing climate of the coast, is a severe trial to a caravan. 



But I anticipated that we were more likely to be troubled 

 with an excess than with a scarcity of water, for the great 



