EVENING BY THE LAKE 23 



To anyone who finds amusement in building 

 imaginary houses the island affords unending 

 pleasure. There are at least a score of places 

 where one would like to build a house and make 

 a garden ; the trouble would be in choosing the 

 best among so many. When, in the time to come, 

 Naivasha is the centre of a settled and prosperous 

 land, and this is the I sola Bella of the lake, it is to 

 be hoped that the happy man who comes to live 

 here will build a house in keeping with the country, 

 and not disfigure the lake with a German castle or 

 a Moorish palace. 



Beautiful as the days are, the nights are even 

 better still. As the shadows lengthen and the sun 

 goes down behind the Mau, a troop of baboons in 

 the rocks begins to chatter before going to bed, and 

 there is a stir amongst the geese beside the lake. 

 Jackals, waking from their long siesta, trot over the 

 plain and creep cautiously towards the camps of the 

 natives. Something brown appears at the edge of 

 the reeds ; it is a water-buck. At first his head and 

 horns alone are visible ; then, after a wary look 

 about him, he steps out from his shelter, and, 

 stopping here and there to crop a tuft of grass, 

 strolls off to a favourite salt-lick a mile away. Like 

 the red-deer of Exmoor, the water-buck play havoc 

 in an unfenced garden and cultivated land ; they 

 love to pull a root out of the ground, and then, after 

 a single bite (and not always that), move on to 

 another. The twilight goes quickly, and in half 



