CHAPTER V 



JUJA FARM : HIPPO AND LEOPARD 



At Juja Farm we were welcomed with the most 

 generous hospitaUty by my fellow-countryman and his 

 wife, Mr. and Mrs. W. N. McMillan. Selous had been 

 staying with them, and one afternoon I had already 

 ridden over from Sir Alfred's ranch to take tea with 

 them at their other house, on the beautiful Mua Hills. 



Juja Farm lies on the edge of the Athi Plains, and 

 the house stands near the junction of the Nairobi and 

 Rewero Rivers. The house, like almost all East 

 African houses, was of one story, a broad, vine-shaded 

 veranda running around it. There were numerous out- 

 buildings of every kind ; there were flocks and herds, 

 cornfields, a vegetable garden, and, immediately in front 

 of the house, a very pretty flower-garden, carefully 

 tended by unsmiling Kikuyu savages. All day long 

 these odd creatures worked at the grass and among the 

 flower-beds. According to the custom of their tribe, 

 their ears were slit so as to enable them to stretch the 

 lobes to an almost incredible extent, and in these 

 apertures they wore fantastically carved native orna- 

 ments. One of them had been attracted by the shining 

 surface of an empty tobacco-can, and he wore this in 

 one ear to match the curiously carved wooden drum he 

 carried in the other. Another, whose arms and legs 



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