CHAPTER II 



July 7. — Worked all the morning at N. T. & Co.'s 

 store fitting saddles to donkeys — our safari kit was all 

 made ready yesterday. At 12 145 the men set out; and 

 at 2:25 we got off with the beasts. Started out over 

 the hills past Government House, over a new piece of 

 road on which some hundreds of Kikuyus were working 

 strictly by hand, and so out to a rolling wooded green 

 country of glades and openings, tiny streams, and 

 speckled sunlight. Little forest paths led off in all 

 directions. Natives were singing and chanting near 

 and far. There were many birds. Toward evening 

 we passed a long safari of native women, each bent 

 forward under a load of firewood that weighed sixty to 

 eighty pounds. Even the littlest little girls carried 

 their share. They seemed cheerful, and were taking 

 the reall3^hard work as a tremendous joke. We passed 

 them strung out singly or in groups, for upward of half 

 an hour; then their road turned off from ours; and still 

 they had not ceased. Camped after nine miles near the 

 mountain of N'gong. Vanderweyer 's farm is near 

 here; and there are staying the guides he promised us to 

 take us across the dry country to his trading homa on 

 the Narossara River. M 'ganga went over to see them. 



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