12 THE LAND OF THE LION 
and there, served only to reveal the confused piles of tents, 
boxes, guns, fodder, and all the innumerable odds and 
ends that are essential if you would make a prolonged 
stay in a country far from supplies. Londiani is one of 
the higher points on the line, and the glass must have been 
almost at the freezing point. David Rebman’s* energy 
even, was not proof against that bitter fog laden cold, 
and when I crawled out of my carriage I found him, too, 
crouching among his blanket-covered men. 
Well, the welcome sun came out at last. And the 
glorious African morning broke, cloudless, opalescent 
steamy vapour rises from grass as yellow and tall as ripe up- 
standing English wheat—that fills the hollows, clothes the 
sides of the steep hills, and pushes right up against the 
railway platform. 
Two long swaying, struggling ox teams crawl slowly 
away, half hidden in the golden morning haze. The 
numbed sefari shakes itself into order, and, breakfastless, 
we take the road on our last stage of the way to the Nzoia 
or Guash’ngishu country whither we are bound. ‘The 
Sergoit rock, which may be said to mark it, lies some 
seventy miles away. 
Here I| will say a word, as, indeed, I shall have occasion 
to do again and again, for the often well-abused sefari 
porter. I say we all started breakfastless, but in my 
friend’s case and my own, we had dined fairly well at 
Nakuru the night before. Our porters were not so fortu- 
nate — railway travelling is slow in British East Africa. 
The single line is of narrow gauge, and there is of 
necessity much shunting and many stops. Nairobi was 
only a little more than one hundred miles away, but we 
had entrained there early the morning before. Head- 
man, Somali gunboys, tentboys, cooks, Swahili, many 
*David Rebman was my headman, on my previous hunting trip to the country. I give some- 
thing of his quite eventful history in another article. He is a quite first class headman. 
