34 ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH [ch. ii 



The naturalists caught shrews and mice in their traps ; 

 molerats with velvety fur, which burrowed like our 

 pocket gophers; rats that lived in holes like those of 

 our kangaroo rat ; and one mouse that was striped like 

 our striped gopher. There were conies among the 

 rocks on the hills ; they looked like squat, heavy wood- 

 chucks, but their teeth were somewhat like those of a 

 wee rhinoceros, and they had little hoof-like nails 

 instead of claws. There were civets and wild-cats, and 

 things like a small mongoose. But the most interesting 

 mammal we saw was a brilliantly-coloured yellow and 

 blue, or yellow and slate, bat, which we put up one day 

 while beating through a ravine. It had been hanging 

 from a mimosa twig, and it flew well in the strong sun- 

 light, looking like some huge parti-coloured buttei-fly. 



^'it was a settled country, this in which we did our 

 first hunting, and for this reason all the more interesting. 

 The growth and development of East and Middle 

 Africa are phenomena of such absorbing interest, that I 

 was delighted at the chance to see the parts where settle- 

 ment has already begun before plunging into the 

 absolute wilderness. There was much to remind one of 

 conditions in Montana and Wyoming thirty years ago ; 

 the ranches planted down among the hills and on the 

 plains still teeming with game, the spirit of daring 

 adventure everywhere visible, the hope and the heart- 

 breaking disappointment, the successes and the failures. 

 But the problem offered by the natives bore no resem- 

 blance to that once offered by the presence of our 

 tribes of horse Indians, few in numbers and incredibly 

 formidable in war. The natives of East Africa are 

 numerous ; many of them are agricultural or pastoral 

 peoples after their own fashion ; and even the bravest 

 of them, the warlike Masai, are in no way formidable 



