278 THE GUASO NYERO [ch. xj 



oxeye daisies, and clover. That night we camped so 

 high that it was really cold, and we welcomed tlie 

 roaring fires of juniper logs. 



We rose at sunrise. It was a glorious morning, clear 

 and cool, and as we sat at breakfast, the table spread in 

 the open on the dew-drenched grass, we saw in the 

 south-east the peak of Kenia, and through the high, 

 transparent air the snow-fields seemed so close as almost 

 to dazzle our eyes. To the north and west we looked 

 far out over the wide, rolling plains to a wilderness of 

 mountain ranges, barren and jagged. All that day and 

 the next vv-e journeyed eastward, almost on the Equator. 

 At noon the overhead sun burned with torrid heat ; but 

 with the twilight— short compared to the long northern 

 twilights, but not nearly as short as tropical twilights 

 are often depicted — came the cold, and each night the 

 frost was hea\'y. The country was untenanted by man. 

 In the afternoon of the third day we began to go down- 

 hill, and hour by hour the flora changed. At last we 

 came to a broad belt of woodland, where the strange 

 trees of many kinds grew tall and thick. Among them 

 were camphor-trees, and trees with gouty branch tips, 

 bearing leaves like those of the black walnut, and 

 panicles of lilac flowers, changing into brown seed 

 vessels ; and other trees, with clusters of purple flowers, 

 and the seeds or nuts enclosed in hard pods or seed 

 vessels like huge sausages. 



On the other side of the forest we came suddenly out 

 on the cultivated fields of the Wa-Meru, who, like the 

 Kikuyu, till the soil ; and among them, farther down, 

 was Meru Boma, its neat, picturesque buildings beauti- 

 fully placed among green groves and irrigated fields, 

 and looking out from its cool elevation over the hot 

 valleys beneath. It is one of the prettiest spots in East 



