128 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES. 



and then through lower rounded hills to the plains. 

 On the desert is only dense thorn brush and a 

 possibility that the newcomer, if he looks very 

 closely, may to his excitement see his first 

 game in Africa. This is a stray duiker or so, 

 tiny grass antelopes a foot high. Also in this 

 land is thirst ; so that alongside the locomotives, 

 as they struggle up grade, in bad seasons, run 

 natives to catch precious drops.* An impalpable 

 red dust sifts through and into everything. When 

 a man descends at Voi for dinner he finds his fel- 

 low-travellers have changed complexion. The pale 

 clerk from indoor Mombasa has put on a fine 

 healthy sunburn ; and the company in general 

 present a rich out-of-doors bloom. A chance dab 

 with a white napkin comes away like fresh paint, 

 however. 



You clamber back into the compartment, with 

 its latticed sun shades and its smoked glass 

 windows ; you let down the narrow canvas 

 bunk ; you unfold your rug, and settle yourself 

 for repose. It is a difficult matter. Everything 

 you touch is gritty. The air is close and stifling, 

 like the smoke-charged air of a tunnel. If you 

 try to open a window you are suffocated with 

 more of the red dust. At last you fall into a 



The Government does much nowadays by means of tank cars. 



