240 AFRICA SPEAKS 



Maniki commented that it was a bad year for the 

 black man when the heavens rained bugs. 



Upon arrival at Gilgil, we unloaded everything into 

 the warehouse, and I sent Ted to the shamba with one 

 truck while Austin and I in the other hustled on to 

 Nairobi. Just before reaching the bottom of the 

 Kikuyu Escarpment we frightened a troop of dog- 

 faced baboons and remarked on their resemblance 

 to Hons when they scrambled away through the grass. 

 Shortly afterwards we met a car containing some 

 tourists coming down the hill. That night at the 

 hotel I overheard these tenderfeet telUng a circle of 

 amazed hsteners about their exciting adventure at 

 the bottom of the escarpment, where they had en- 

 countered a troop of lions! 



Finding it necessary to visit Mombasa in order to 

 complete final details concerning my gasohne supphes 

 across Africa and to pick up a shipment of motion- 

 picture film that was waiting there for me, I made 

 arrangements with Mike to go down in his touring 

 car. He was glad of the opportunity because he 

 wanted to visit his dad's mine on the coast, so in the 

 early morning of February tliirteenth we started sea- 

 ward over the dusty trail that bumps for hundreds of 

 miles across fields and rock-strewn guUies, hills, and 

 veldt. Tliis is the main highway, being without doubt 

 the worst road of its length in the entire world. At 

 the end of the first threescore miles, all that could be 

 seen of Mike, the native boy, and myself, was the 

 whites of our eyes; everything was buried under 

 inches of fine red dust. 



There are many stream beds crossing this boulevard, 

 but we found only two bridges in place, one at Stony 



