304 THE LAND OF THE LION 
spiney following are all left behind and beneath me. The 
pretty cedar-like thorn trees still grow along the river bank, 
but mingling among them are others that tell of the mountain 
near by. The juniper, perhaps the best timber tree in 
East Africa, begins here to show itself, not yet grown into 
the stately tree with straight stem rising one hundred feet 
and more, free of knot or branch, which we left amid the 
dark woodland beyond Eldama Ravine. But stunted 
thought it way be, for the ravine land is too hot, sandy and 
dry for it to flourish in, it is good to see. 
Here and there you notice a graceful rounded mass of 
rich lilac flowers, one of the most beautiful sights the forest 
has to show. [I cannot find anyone who knows its name; 
it is commonly called the chestnut tree* but I can see no 
resemblance whatever to the chestnut about it, unless it be 
a prickly burr which protects the seed. 
Seen at a few feet’s distance the flowers look ragged, but 
from the ground the effect it presents of masses and bunches 
of fresh jilac colour is very striking indeed. It grows as high 
as sixty feet. The stem is smooth and graceful, the crown 
spreads wide and is one mass of bloom. I have not seen it 
growing anywhere at a height of less than seven hundred feet. 
As I mount higher still, the wild olive crowns the river 
banks and in single trees and small groves is scattered over 
the steep stony slopes of bordering hills. The colour and 
height of the African wild olive (a common tree) is very 
much the same as its Italian cousin. And I could almost 
fancy I was riding beneath a neglected olive slope in those 
parts of Tuscany where the poor land scarcely repays the 
toil of the peasant and the terraces have been allowed to 
crumble away. Now I turn my mule’s head for an hour or 
two away from the river and, scrambling up the stony slope 
that leads to the level country at my left, I come face to face 
with a totally different scene. 
*Calidendron. I have since learned that it is well known in other parts of Africa. 
