THE STORY OF AN OUTING 



dense forests, especially the bamboo belt. Trees mark 

 the watercourses, and acacia predominates, as does the 

 cottonwood along the streams on our Western plains. 



Thorn scrub obtains in localities, but generally the 

 trees, where they exist, are 'the size and shape of our 

 fruit-trees, and about as close together. Standing on an 

 eminence and viewing a wide sweep of country, it is 

 difficult to believe that all before you is not the well- 

 kept product of superior husbandry. The spear-grass, 

 which is everywhere, grows in height from your middle 

 thigh to shoulder, depending upon richness of soil and 

 degree of moisture, and waving in the wind looks like 

 cultivated fields of grass or grain. 



This country has two rainy seasons; the small rains 

 come in October and November, and the big rains in 

 March, April, and May, and they are torrential at 

 times. The vegetable growth is so luxuriant and so 

 dense at the bottom, especially the grasses, that it pro- 

 tects the earth largely from the evaporation which the 

 intense heat of the sun might otherwise produce. 



The richest country is generally occupied by natives, 

 and the government scrupulously protects them in their 

 ownership and control. Of course, game will avoid 

 populous places and is found largely upon the untillable 

 plains, where grazing is of the best and protection may 

 be had. Game in Africa, as did gamejjpon our Western 

 plains, seeks protection by rusrnng into the open, where 

 their eyes can see danger and their Meet limbs keep them 

 out of range. They do not need scientific instruments 

 to determine the range of modern guns they simply 

 know. The average shot in British East Africa is two 

 hundred yards or over, and on Kapiti Plains, about thirty 



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