FROM GILGIL TO KENIA 273 
Rough as the country is on the northern bank, it teems 
with game. Very fine impala are plentiful. Large flocks 
of Grant and Tommy feed on the more open country across 
the river to the south, and eland were quite plentiful, 
some carrying good horns. 
Three miles back from the river, the bush slopes sharply 
up to a wide table-land. I saw oryx, eland and rhino as 
well as two lions and a leopard all on one morning. The 
oryx and rhino [ did not want—and I needed a pony 
which I[ did not then have, to get near either of the other 
animals. 
At the junction of the Guasi Narok (down which we 
had been marching ever since we came to the Embellossett 
Swamp) and the Guasi Nyiro we made permanent camp 
for several days. This is an excellent place to establish 
a hunting camp, and as you move farther north toward 
the mountain, a base camp from which to supply the 
sefari. 
On the Guasi Narok, fifteen miles above the junction, 
I shot an aard wolf and saw two others. This is an ex- 
ceedingly rare animal in the Protectorate. 
Several kinds of partridges and frankolin are common 
along the river banks. One little brown partridge with a 
sharp spur, which I have seen nowhere else, is the best 
eating bird I found in Africa, except the snipe, quail and 
lesser bustard. 
The morning star burns gloriously in the east as I 
stand at the front door. There are no signs as yet of 
daylight, but you can smell the day, and the earliest birds 
are beginning to call and twitter. Presently the blue 
black of the eastern horizon takes a tinge of clear gray 
which changes almost suddenly into a low-lying band of 
dull red; in a moment this becomes first crimson, then 
golden, and then between the two great mountains, over 
the dark purple plain that divides them, bursts the sun. 
