CHAPTER III 
ACROSS THE MAU ESCARPMENT TO LION 
LAND 
Aas RAVINE BOMA* stands on a high, flat 
topped hill commanding an immensely extensive 
and very beautiful view. To the east rises the fine Aberdare 
range, not yet accurately surveyed, but probably some of 
its summits are 14,000 feet high. ‘To the north, surrounded 
by a very tumult of gorges and precipices, lies Lake Baringo. 
On the west and northwest the wall of the forest clad Mau 
lifts its fine purple masses. 
Evening is the best time to climb to the neat native 
village on the very summit of the hill. Here the askaris’s 
families live. The red earth is swept twice a day, no trace 
of rubbish anywhere, and the red thatched circular cottages 
stand in orderly rows. As the sun sinks behind the great 
woodland, a flood of such evening light as is only to be seen 
in Africa, pours all over the varied country you are looking 
down on from a height of almost eight thousand feet. At 
your feet are some of the richest shambas in the whole 
Protectorate. In them two heavy crops are raised yearly, 
and I measured a peach tree in the government shamba 
fifteen inches in diameter, only seven years old. 
For forty miles the land slopes eastward and northward, 
The country toward Baringo is very dry and sandy. The 
mountains on either side seem to catch and hold the rain 
clouds, for the rainfall at the boma and on the Aberdare 
is excessive; in the valley it is light and precarious, and 
* Boma means many things, a fenced enclosure to guard against lions, hence any fenced place. 
Government posts in earlier and unsettled days were always rudely fortified. 
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