OVER THE LIKIPIA ESCARPMENT. 285 



We clanged the doors shut, climbed aboard, 

 and the train at last steamed on. Now bits of 

 forest came across our way, deep, shaded, with 

 trailing curtain vines, and wide leaves as big 

 as table tops, and high, lush, impenetrable un- 

 dergrowth full of flashing birds, fathomless 

 shadows, and inquisitive monkeys. Occasionally 

 we emerged to the edge of a long oval meadow, 

 set in depressions among hills, like our Sierra 

 meadows. Indeed so like were these openings to 

 those in our own wooded mountains that we 

 always experienced a distinct shock of surprise 

 as the familiar woods parted to disclose a dark 

 solemn savage with flashing spear. 



We stopped at various stations, and descended 

 and walked about in the gathering shadows of 

 the forest. It was getting cool. Many little 

 things attracted our attention, to remain in our 

 memories as isolated pictures. Thus I remember 

 one grave savage squatted by the track playing 

 on a sort of mandoline- shaped instrument. It 

 had two strings, and he twanged these alter- 

 nately, without the slightest effort to change 

 their pitch by stopping with his fingers. He bent 

 his head sidewise, and listened with the metic- 

 ulous attention of a connoisseur. We stopped 

 at that place for fully ten minutes, but not for a 



