ii6 WESTWARD TO LAKE VICTORIA NYANZA 



the trained scientists of the Department of Agriculture. One way to 

 clear the ground of its poison is to put sheep upon it, which ^re not 

 harmed by the poison from the tick. Others are to divide the country 

 up into fields by wire fencing, and thus keep the cattle within unin- 

 fected areas; to destroy suspected animals; to search for remedies to 

 the disease, and to bring to play upon the evil all the resources of mod- 

 ern science. 



But let us continue our journey to the great African lake — the 

 Victoria Nyanza. Long before reaching Naivasha we left behind us 

 the highland region and descended the steep Kikuyu Escarpment, the 

 lofty and precipitous eastern wall of the Rift Valley. Crossing this 

 wonderfully fertile valley, we reach the opposite wall, the Mau Escarp- 

 ment, the lofty western ridge, up which the train creeps with as nmch 

 difficulty as it had met with in descending the opposite wall. Through- 

 out this whole region the railway is engaged in a constant battle with 

 the luxuriant forces of vegetable nature in the tropics. Over the line 

 hang great trees. The cuttings are invaded by multitudinous creepers, 

 which trail downwards, covering the embankments, and seeking inces- 

 santly to bury the roadway. Every neglected clearing is quickly taken 

 captive by these swift-growing plants. Only for the ceaseless care 

 with which the line is cleared and weeded it would soon be overrun. 

 If abandoned for a year it would be difficult to discover where it ran. 



Wood is superabundant, coal is lacking, and the road is run 

 entirely with wood fuel. Natives are kept constantly at work picking 

 away at the trees with their native choppers, a feeble substitute for the 

 American axe. It is a slow, wearisome and costly way of providing 

 the engine furnaces with fuel. A steam-plant, to cut down and cut up 

 the trees, would replace these slow-going native wood-butchers at a 

 fraction of their cost and a shadow of their trouble. Doubtless thisj 

 will ere long be introduced, but at present the "chop, chop, chop," of 

 the hundreds of natives is all one hears. 



The valley level is left and we are now crawling up the Mau Es- 

 carpment, getting steadily higher and finding changes in the aspect 

 of the country as we advance. The forest through which we have 

 long rolled onward, begins to give way to rolling hills covered with 

 grass. And the odd feature of this is that there is no border of scat- 



