IN THE ABERDARES 



The rainfall over these forests is generally high, and there 

 is always plenty of water available. Where the bamboo 

 forest joins the hardwood forests it would seem that 

 there has been a battle of species, the bamboo striving to 

 suppress the timber forests. If the history of the past 

 were known we might find that this conflict has been 

 going on for many generations, sometimes one gaining 

 ground, sometimes the other. For the greater part it 

 would seem that the tendency has been for the bamboo, 

 Arundinaria, to spread, though in some cases it has 

 found an equal in a timber from Mukeo, Dombeya 

 Mastersii. 



Surrounding the Aberdare Range roughly in the 

 form of an ellipse with a large bulge to the northeast is 

 a belt of bamboo ranging from four to eight miles in 

 width. As one climbs over an altitude of seventy-five 

 hundred feet there is a tendency for the high forest to 

 end and the bamboo forest to begin. For about one mile 

 the forest is mixed with bamboo, but as the bamboo re- 

 gion is penetrated few but suppressed and partially sup- 

 pressed trees are found. In some places it is possible to 

 travel for a whole day without seeing anything but 

 bamboo. In these regions progress is slow and if it were 

 not for the paths trampled by elephants the diflSculty of 

 travel away from the existing roads would be intensi- 

 fied. It was just off the main road running west from 

 Nyeri that I found some of the largest bamboos in the 

 Highlands. Many of the culms were sixty feet in height 

 with a diameter up to five inches. During my tour of 



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