202 A COLONY IN THE MAKING chap. 



dispose of. Wattle timber is excellent fuel, but very 

 hot, and will probably necessitate an increased size of 

 fuel box ; but the wattle industry is likely to be such 

 an important one to the Protectorate that to a State- 

 owned line this is a minor detail. 



Nakuru provides us with our dinner, and an 

 excellent one it is ; the hotel here being without 

 doubt the best in the country. This town is the 

 centre of the stock-raising district and the scene of 

 the annual agricultural show ; it is likely to be a place 

 of some considerable importance. 



Night is now upon us, and we shall accordingly 

 pass deep in slumber through perhaps the most 

 interesting as well as almost the richest portions of 

 the line. First comes Njoro with its wheat-fields, 

 some 5,000 acres of which are already under crop, its 

 wattle plantations, its saw-mills, and its pigs. Then 

 we shall run through the glorious cedars of the Mau 

 forests, the haunt of buffalo and elephant and of the 

 mysterious bongo and the giant forest hog. After 

 this we come out into the rolling downs, splendid 

 pasturage, and forest glades of Molo. Once over 

 Mau Summit, 8,300 feet high, we begin to drop 

 towards the lake, passing into forest land again. At 

 Londiani a splendid new and metalled road branches 

 off to the Uasin Guishu plateau, and this place is likely 

 to be one of the most important centres on the line. 

 Not only is it extremely beautiful and healthy enough 

 to be a sanatorium, but the soil, especially suitable for 

 wattle, is second to none. Already an extremely 

 comfortable hotel and other buildings mark its 

 advance. Lumbwa is another centre of a farming 

 community growing wheat and wattle and declaring 



