GLIMPSES OF EAST AFRICA AND ZANZIBAR 



In January I took on a permanent gardener (a 

 Kikuyu). He was very funny to look at ; his cos- 

 tume consisted of some beads round his neck, a 

 chain round his ankle, and a little piece of Ameri- 

 kani (unbleached calico), the same colour as himself, 

 tied over one shoulder and flapping in the breeze. 

 He carried the soil and I planted the flowers ; he 

 took a great interest in it, bringing me weird look- 

 ing weeds to plant, thinking them choice flowers. 

 People were very kind in giving flowers and cuttings 

 to those about to start a garden, so I did well, and 

 had roses cut from bushes the roots of which had 

 been sent out from home. 



There are a fair number of snakes round Nairobi ; 

 we found several in our garden, and one day I had 

 a fright. As I was walking with a friend across the 

 parade ground and was just going to put my foot 

 down, I saw my back foot almost touching a snake 

 and the other about to descend on to it. I managed 

 to lengthen my stride and just escaped it. For a few 

 seconds it lay under my skirts between my feet, and 

 I expected it to crawl up my leg ; happily it slept on 

 and did not move. It was basking in the sunshine, 

 and I went back to have a good look at it ; we unfor- 

 tunately had nothing with which to kill it. Baruku 

 said it was a poisonous one, but I do not know. 

 It was silvery green, with black Vs up its spine. 

 Next time we found snakes on the parade ground 

 we killed them. One was a horrid black one, that 



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