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UP FROM THE COAST 



The gray dawn comes; and shortly, in the sudden 

 tropical fashion, the full light. You look out on a 

 wide smiling grass country, with dips and swales, 

 and brushy river bottoms, and long slopes and hills 

 thrusting up in masses from down below the horizon, 

 and singly here and there in the immensities nearer 

 at hand. The train winds and doubles on itself 

 up the gentle slopes and across the imperceptibly 

 rising plains. But the interest is not in these wide 

 prospects, beautiful and smiling as they may be, 

 but in the game. It is everywhere. Far in the 

 distance the herds twinkle, half guessed in the 

 shimmer of the bottom lands or dotting the sides 

 of the hills. Nearer at hand it stares as the train 

 rumbles and sways laboriously past. Occasionally 

 it even becomes necessary to whistle aside some 

 impertinent kongoni that has placed himself between 

 the metals! The newcomer has but a theoretical 

 knowledge at best of all these animals; and he is 

 intensely interested in identifying the various 

 species. The hartebeeste and the wildebeeste he 

 learns quickly enough; and of course the zebra and 

 the giraffe are unmistakable; but the smaller gazelles 

 are legitimate subjects for discussion. The wonder 

 of the extraordinary abundance of these wild animals 

 mounts as the hours slip by. At the stops for water 

 or for orders the passengers gather from their 



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