CHAPTER XL 



THE FOREST. 



THE forests of British East Africa are mostly at high altitudes. The great 

 juniper forests, such as those of Kenya and the Aberdares, do not exist 

 below an altitude of six thousand feet, and are usually considerably above this 

 level. Most of the lower forests are so tangled with undergrowth that progression 

 through them is difficult. The forests of greater trees are, however, frequently more or 

 less free from impediments below, excepting for broken branches and various shoots 

 and fallen trees, and these are comparatively easy to walk through. 



Passing from the bush and plain to these great forests, one enters quite a 

 different kind of country and climate — it is as if a new land had sprung around one. 

 Everything has altered, the whole aspect is different, and all vegetation and animal 

 life seems to have changed. 



On the plains and in the bush one experienced sun and glare, but in these 

 forests there is everywhere cool shade. Whilst before all was dry and parched, 

 now one has entered a land of moisture and running streams. The forest animals 

 are most of them unknown elsewhere, and the birds even are different. The cold 

 morning mists hang about the forests, and it is difficult to believe that one is close 

 to the equator. In the early morning can be heard the croaking of the colobi, 

 uttered and answered all over the forest. The sound appears to start from far 

 away and then comes rolling nearer and nearer, passes swiftly overhead and away 

 into the deepest recesses of the forest. This seeming movement is given to the 

 sound by the croak being taken up by numberless colobi, and as the cry reaches 

 each individual it is passed on to others beyond. This wave of sound probably 

 passes the length and breadth of the forest like the wave of cocks crowing 

 which passes across England from east to west, day by day, as the westward cocks 

 take up the call from their brethren eastward. The piping of the different guernons 

 and other monkeys sounds from all sides, whilst the loud rusthng of leaves and 

 branches above tells of parties making their way along their roads. Or it may be 

 that a party of colobus have been disturbed, and the crashing of branches is heard 

 as they recklessly throw themselves from tree to tree. 



At midday the forest is generally silent, there is neither sign nor sound of 

 life, but towards evening it wakes up a little, and the monkeys start twittering 



