336 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



them joyfully; while my men were equally pleased to see 

 their fellows, each shaking hands with his especial friends. 

 Next morning we started toward Meru, heading north-east, 

 toward the foot-hills of Kenia. The vegetation changed 

 its character as we rose. By the stream where we had 

 camped grew the great thorn-trees with yellow-green trunks 

 which we had become accustomed to associate with the 

 presence of herds of game. Out on the dry flats were 

 other thorns, weazened little trees, or mere scrawny bushes, 

 with swellings like bulbs on the branches and twigs, and 

 the long thorns far more conspicuous than the scanty foli- 

 age; though what there was of this foliage, now brilliant 

 green, was exquisite in hue and form, the sprays of delicate 

 little leaves being as fine as the daintiest lace. On the 

 foot-hills all these thorn-trees vanished. We did not go as 

 high as the forest belt proper (here narrow, while above 

 it the bamboos covered the mountain side), but tongues of 

 juniper forest stretched down along the valleys which we 

 crossed, and there were large patches of coarse deer fern, 

 while among many unknown flowers we saw blue lupins, 

 ox-eye daisies, and clover. That night we camped so high 

 that it was really cold, and we welcomed the roaring fires 

 of juniper logs. 



We rose at sunrise. It was a glorious morning, clear 

 and cool, and as we sat at breakfast, the table spread in 

 the open on the dew-drenched grass, we saw in the south- 

 east the peak of Kenia, and through the high, transparent 

 air the snow-fields seemed so close as almost to dazzle our 

 eyes. To the north and west we looked far out over the 

 wide, rolling plains to a wilderness of mountain ranges, 

 barren and jagged. All that day and the next we journeyed 

 eastward, almost on the equator. At noon the overhead 

 sun burned with torrid heat; but with the twilight short 

 compared to the long northern twilights, but not nearly as 

 short as tropical twilights are often depicted came the cold, 

 and each night the frost was heavy. The country was un- 

 tenanted by man. In the afternoon of the third day we 



