In Untrodden Paths 



~an ever hope to be. Some have come to greet 



-iends, others have been sent with weird-looking 



irrows to take away merchandise ; but the 



reater part are there just to help things by 



ooking on with staring eyes and capacious 



mouths agape. 



One fine day, duty on firearms and other odds 

 and ends having been paid, hotel bills settled, and 

 baksheesh duly doled out, I took the train en 

 route for Nairobi, three hundred and twenty-five 

 miles away. Everything was in the van, I was 

 led to believe, and I said good-bye and settled 

 myself to the monotony of a journey in a very 

 comfortable carriage, built on the Indian pattern, 

 with two seats which become beds by night ; two 

 other beds, at present folded up along the ceiling 

 and the wall ; and every convenience for the 

 modern traveller in the East. 



Through groves of feathery palms and banana 

 plantations we sped, pulling up at a wayside 

 station every ten or fifteen miles. Looking out 

 upon the scene, one saw the inevitable Indian 

 station-master and his two or three does in the 

 foreground, and in the distance rolling grass or 

 dense bush. So we progressed till we reached 

 the Taru Desert, with its beautiful, bright-green 

 thorn bushes and red sand — sand that rises into 

 the air with the draught created by the train and 

 enters the carriage at every crevice. On waking 

 next morning somewhere near Simba Station, I 

 d 49 



