CHAP. V ACROSS THE FOOT-HILLS 63 



rains were due. That we should not have long to wait for 

 them was indicated by the dense clouds that hung in the west, 

 and the weather-wise on the coast predicted a " masika " or 

 rainy season of exceptional severity. I had, therefore, made 

 no special arrangements for carrying water, and felt a distinct 

 satisfaction when, the day after we had left Mombasa, the 

 rains began. 



We struck camp very leisurely, as I had promised that we 

 would that day go no farther than Maseras or, as it is other- 

 wise known, Gonjeni. This place the men assured me was 

 five hours' march inland ; but I knew it ought to be reached in 

 three. I consented to so short a march ostensibly as a favour 

 to the men, though I felt it would be quite as much as I could 

 manage, for my fever was worse and had entailed a breakfast- 

 less start. The path almost immediately joined a narrow gauge 

 railway, which was laid as the beginning of the projected 

 Uganda railway. It now ends, however, at the foot of the hill 

 of Mazeras, only seven miles from the coast. Even for this 

 short length it is not intact ; in places the line is overgrown by 

 shrubs ; here and there the white ants have removed the 

 foundations of the sleepers, rain has breached the embank- 

 ment, and the natives have at intervals stolen a few lengths of 

 the rails. The track passed over undulating, richly-wooded 

 country, with clearings in which were groves of cocoa-nut 

 palms and papaws, orchards of mangoes and cashew apples, 

 plantations of banana, maize, and millet, and fields of cassava 

 (manioc or arrowroot), and of the plant the seeds of which yield 

 simpsin oil. This district is the granary and market-garden of 

 Mombasa, as it was in the days of old Ibn Batuta. The 

 ground rises gradually to the foot of the steep hill of Mazeras, 

 the summit of which, 600 feet in height, we reached just before 

 a heavy storm of rain burst upon us. I at once took up my 

 quarters in a comfortable iron hut, that had been erected for 

 the manager of a mine once opened here. The workings show 

 a thin vein of galena or sulphide of lead, which was prospected 

 by the British East Africa Company ; the ore is, however, in 

 thin strings, and the specimens I saw appeared to be very poor 

 in silver. An hour after my arrival, while I was taking my 

 frugal dinner of a cup of arrowroot, I was startled by a visit 

 from Mr. Edmonds, the missionary who was stationed at 



