54 UNDER THE AFRICAN SUN 



Lake Nakuru is apparently the home of the flamingoes ; they 

 seem to be always present in numbers. I was much surprised 

 when I compared some which I shot on my last journey and 

 brought home with me, with others which I had shot on the 

 previous journey. The birds belonged to two totally different 

 species. The one sort is a small, rare bird, with quite a different 

 form of beak to the other which is the large, common flamingo. 

 Amongst my specimens there were some young and some old. 

 In the young the iris is grey, in the old it is bright yellow. 



Though the water of Lake Nakuru is brackish, a fair-sized 

 stream flow's into it. A number of fresh water springs bubble 

 out of the soil within a few yards of the lake. There are a 

 good many hippos, but they are difficult to shoot. They are 

 shy, and have probably been shot at by passing caravans. 



A two-days' march from Lake Nakuru takes the traveller 

 to the Ravine Station. About twelve miles from the station he 

 crosses the Equator. Some facetious individual, signing himself 

 " Snooks," has put up a board calling the attention of tiie pass- 

 ing caravan to the fact that they are crossing " the line." But 

 though the Ravine Station is practically on the 

 Equator, it is out and out the coldest station in 

 the whole of the Uganda Protectorate. 



I have met Wanderobo men near Naivasha, but 

 the first Anderobo woman I saw at the Ravine ; she 

 was dressed in monkey-skins. The Wanderobo are 

 a race of elephant-hunters. Those I saw resembled 

 the Masai in dress and ornaments. The Eldoma 

 mountain range is inhabited by a race called the 

 Kamasia. 



Where caravans used to cross formerly, the 

 Ravine has steep sides, and deep down at the 

 bottom of it there is a mountain stream which, 

 when swollen by heavy rains, may become a 

 ANDEROBO WOMAN, fiercc torrcut but in the dry season is only ankle- 

 deep. Formerly caravans lost a day in crossing 

 the Ravine. By the present caravan route, a few hundred 

 yards higher up the river, caravans can pass without any 

 difficulty w^hatever. The former Ravine crossing is, however, 

 worth a visit. Pretty ferns, amongst them maiden-hair, grow 

 here in wild profusion, 



Mr. James ]\Lartin, the officer in charge of the Ravine Station, 



