190 AFRICA SPEAKS 



continued forward, and with the first light of dawn 

 were presented with a magnificent sight. Clouds of 

 mist rolled over the hills and filled the valleys. We 

 would speed along for a while in semidarkness, enveloped 

 in sheets of vapor, and then by cHmbing upwards 

 would emerge into a fairyland where the first shafts 

 of sunlight were playing over the mountain tops and 

 painting the clouds that rolled beneath with brilliant 

 colors. Then we would dip down, passing through 

 the fog to drive beneath the clouds for a while, and 

 reemerge as we cHmbed the opposite side of a hill, to 

 travel again through an enchanted world where moun- 

 tains peeked through fleecy blankets and scudding 

 vapor formed fantastic and eerie shapes. Majestic 

 Mount Kenya stood sentinel to the left of us, outHned 

 against the pink light of dawn, as we roller-coastered 

 up and down through the Aberdare Mountains, from 

 clear heights to fog and back again, while the sun 

 slowly ascended, announcing to a waiting world that 

 this was Christmas morning! 



Mona tried her best to make it a merry day for all 

 of us, and prepared a hoHday dinner of roast wild 

 duck with all the trimmings. While enjoying this 

 meal, I looked out through the window at snowcapped 

 Mount Kenya and listened to the whining of the wind 

 as it swept down from Kenya's slopes. It was hard to 

 reafize that this was Africa; that I was within gun- 

 shot of the equator, for the setting could be duplicated 

 in my own beloved Rockies. 



After three days at the shamba we were again on 

 the road, the time between our departure and the first 

 of the year being a history of what happened to the 

 trucks rather than the members of the expedition. 



