AFRICAN CAMP FIRES 



may to his excitement glimpse 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 one descends 

 at Voi for dinner he finds his fellow 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 doze; to awaken nearly frozen! The 

 train has climbed into what is, after weeks of the 

 tropics, comparative cold; and if you have not been 

 warned to carry wraps, you are in danger of con- 

 gestions. 



*The Government does much nowadays by means of tank cars. 



114 



