chapter II 



THE DANCE OF THE TREES 



At length the day of the great dance arrived. It was one 

 of those perfectly fine days of glorious sun and crisp air 

 to which one becomes almost accustomed in the delec- 

 table highlands of Kenya. As I dressed, I felt that at least 

 the elements were with me, for the sun was already rising 

 over the distant mountains; and when the early mists 

 cleared, the snow-capped peak of Kenya caught the 

 morning sunlight, while her sister Kilimanjaro, a hun- 

 dred miles away, looked like a giant's breakfast table 

 spread with a snowy white cloth hanging over its square 

 top. It was hard to imagine that one was on the equator, 

 for in spite of the sun as I sat down to breakfast I was 

 heartily thankful for the roaring fire which Ramazini, 

 my Arab boy, had kindled beside me. 



I noticed that Ramazini was burning Mutarakwa 

 chips. They made an aromatic fire, but it seemed a great 

 waste to be burning this wood which I had recently 

 found would make excellent pencils. Not many weeks 

 before I had been walking through the forest and came 

 across a fallen tree of this wood which some native 

 women had been cutting up for fire-wood or to make 

 slabs for the walls of their huts. I had picked up a chip 



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