10 THE LAND OF THE LION 
River — where the sun shines full into it — is a marvellous 
bit of colour. But here the colours are as brilliant, and yet 
have the softness that the chasm of our mountain river 
lacks. One of Turner’s magic sunsets, transferred from 
sea to land, would alone give an idea of its iridescent 
splendour. I fancy the clouds formed by the steep escarp- 
ments that shut the valley in on either side are partly 
the cause. 
During the night African forests breed clouds all their 
own. ‘The dense moisture floats off slowly in the morning 
sun, clinging to the tree-tops as it rises, and forming clouds 
heavy enough to hold together till almost midday. On 
both sides of this glowing valley these cloud-forming 
forest ridges rise for more than two thousand feet, and 
from them, let the wind blow where it will, during the 
morning hours at least, the drifting vapours will partly 
shade the plain. Through these breaks, the sun, lighting 
up broad stretches of corn yellow grass land, shining 
on purple woods pushing down the steep incline, and on 
all the tossed and broken masses of ridge and valley, 
heaved up ages ago, when this vast chasm yawned open 
in a cooling crust. 
Colour everywhere. Colour changing, shifting. Colour 
on the red-brown cones of two long extinct volcanoes, 
that must have bubbled forth lava thousands of years 
after the valley’s floor had grown firm. Colour on the great 
volcanic rocks that seam their sides, and over which the 
greenery of the tropics has not yet had time to weave its 
mantle and colour at last far away down the glowing 
valley, caught up and flashed upward from Naivasha 
Lake. 
Up and down the Kedong Valley in pre-railroad days 
—that is to say, not ten years ago— passed much 
of such commerce as there then was between the great 
lakes and the sea. Here tribe clashed with tribe. The 
