94 NEW AFRICA. 



Within tlie White Belt of British East Africa no class of actual set- 

 tlers are showing more adaptability and rugged determination to wring 

 substantial results from the old, dormant country than the Boers, many 

 of whom had planted themselves in the soil before the British protec- 

 torate was even dreamed of. Some of the richest lands along the rail- 

 road lie around beautiful Lake Nakuru, where the line makes its first 

 decided turn to the westward on its way to Lake Victoria Nyanza. At 

 this locality is one of the largest and most prosperous Boer colonies in 

 East Africa, most of the settlers being housed in the typical corrugated 

 iron buildings, which are not pretty to look at, but are both light, strong, 

 cool and weather-proof. As the altitude here is more than seven thou- 

 sand feet above sea level, it is not always heat alone against which the 

 householders need protection. 



GREAT SCENIC SECTION OF RAILWAY. 



The great scenic section of the Uganda Railroad is from Nairobi to 

 Nakuru, during which the country rapidly rises through a series of alter- 

 nating escarpments and valleys to an altitude of nearly eight thousand 

 feet at the Mau Escarpment beyond the latter station. During the first 

 twenty-four miles out of Nairobi the rise is some two thousand feet. 

 To the west of Nairobi, at the foot of the Kikuyu hills, the plain country 

 abruptly ends. As far as the eye can see extends a frowning wall of 

 forest-clad rocks, and when the train has struggled to high ground, now 

 six thousand feet above the sea, it shows the tourist one of the most 

 impressive sights in East Africa. 



ESCARPMENT STATION AND RIFT VALLEY. 



From Escarpment Station the railroad pitches and zigzags its way 

 into Rift Valley, fifteen hundred feet below, its broad expanses being 

 broken by strange volcanic formations. Some of the shattered craters 

 in the valley are not inactive, and one slumbering volcano is planted in 

 the middle of Lake Naivasha. To the west the valley is barricaded by 

 the lofty Mau hills and clif¥s, which collectively form the escarpment 

 which bends toward the northwest and crosses the railroad beyond 

 Nakuru. Before the days of the railroad the traveler was lowered over 

 the escarpment into the valley below, or elevated from the valley to the 

 heights — as the case might be — by an old rope lift. 



