THE RAVINE DISTRICT SS 



is a veteran traveller, having done a score of journeys, though 

 not always right up to Kampala. He was the first of the 

 bachelor officials who got married, and his example has been 

 followed by others, from storekeeper to Commissioner. Since 

 English Mission ladies by their presence demonstrated that 

 Uganda suited European ladies, there has been quite a matri- 

 monial epidemic. 



From the Ravine the traveller next passes on to the cold 

 and wind-swept Mau escarpment, over 9000 feet above sea-level. 

 Sometimes it is very cold here. I have seen hoar-frost on the 

 ground and a thin coating of ice on the edge of shallow 

 springs. On my fourth journey it was so cold during the night, 

 that my boy in the early morning found, to his astonishment, 

 the water in the pail frozen into a solid lump. He had seen 

 sleet, but never anything like this. When he came to tell 

 me that my matutinal tub was not ready, I was only too glad 

 of a legitimate excuse to snuggle down in the warm blankets 

 for a little longer ; so I told him to put the pail near, but 

 not too near the fire, and to call me again when the bath was 

 ready. 



It was on the Mau that I captured a new species of butter- 

 fly, a green swallow-tail. At the Ravine the orange-yellow 

 swallow-tail of Captain Pringle is quite common in March, and 

 others, equally valuable, are at certain seasons met with here by 

 the dozen. 



The caravan-road across Mau was recently littered with dead 

 and dying bullocks belonging to the Government bullock-trans- 

 port which consequently broke down. The mission doctor at 

 Kibwezi called this form of cattle disease pleuro-pneumonia, but 

 the Government veterinary surgeon, whom I met at Machakos, 

 said there could be no doubt but that it was rinderpest. 



Leaving bleak Mau, the traveller descends to the Nandi 

 country, only opened to traffic since the last three years. 

 Formerly the inhabitants were fierce and treacherous. A con- 

 firmation of this was the sad tragedy which befell Mr. West, 

 an English trader, at the hands of the Wanandi. 



The last time I saw Mr. West alive was at Mumia's. He 

 was then on the point of going to the Nandi country to buy 

 ivory in exchange for cows. I asked him whether he was 

 not afraid to venture with such a small number of men, 

 barely twenty porters, among a race not yet brought under 



