44 



THE CENTRAL PROVINCE 



of these, within a few miles of the A'ictoria Nvanza, the water percolates 

 slowly north-west to the Nile.) Except along the broken edge of the 

 Nandi Escarpment, there is not much forest in Kavirondo, though those 

 forests which follow the western slope of the Nandi Plateau are certainly 

 amongst the densest and richest of the Protectorate. There is abundant 

 evidence to show that Kavirondo was once a forest land, but that it has 

 been deforested through the agency of man, only a few clumps of trees 

 being left standing on hilltops in connection with the worship of spirits. 

 Nevertheless, there is still a fringe of fine trees along every watercourse, 

 and the country is so splendidly clothed in fine grass and luxurious 



35. CROSSING THE NZOIA RIVER 



herbage —to say nothing of the flourishing crops of an agricultural people — 

 that the forest is not any loss so far as picturesqueness is concerned. 



The whole of the Kavirondo country is most grateful to the eye. It 

 consists of rolling downs (though there is a little marsh in the valley of 

 the Nzoia) covered with the greenest of grass, and made additionally 

 beautiful by the blending with the green of fleecy white, shining mauve, 

 or pale pink, efifects which are caused bv the grass being in flower or 

 fluffy seed. It is a breezy,- healthy country, at an elevation ranging 

 between 4,000 and 6,000 feet. The villages really consist of aggregations 

 of separate settlements, each belonging to a single family — hay-cock huts 

 surrounded sometimes by a moat choked with vegetation, and always b}' 



