VI 



THE TREK 



NAIROBI is the hub of British East Africa; here 

 we organized our safari, and here our party di- 

 vided, Hine, Folsom, and Terry going south toward 

 German East Africa, with Outram for guide; Pirie and 

 myself going to the Tana Valley. For guides we had 

 the world-renowned sportsman and naturalist, R. J. 

 Cuninghame, assisted by Major J. A. C. Kirkwood. 

 Cuninghame is sui generis among sportsmen a Cam- 

 bridge man, a naturalist and acknowledged authority, 

 an expert in all the arts of woodcraft and plainscraft, a 

 genius in the preservation of trophies, a persistent, in- 

 defatigable worker, deeply interested in all he does and 

 keenly solicitous to give you the best of opportunities, 

 possessing a wonderfully pleasing personality, and yet 

 modest and unassuming withal. Major Kirkwood is a 

 cultivated English gentleman who inherited a large 

 fortune, which he exchanged for a good time; until 

 recently a member of Parliament, an officer of cavalry 

 in the Boer War, most agreeable and entertaining, tall, 

 strong, resolute, hard as nails, an eye like a hawk, a 

 keen and skilful sportsman. No one was ever better 

 chaperoned in an African hunt than Pirie and myself. 

 We left New York January 22d, and reached Nairobi 



40 



