THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS 



And what a deluge I Facing it we found difficulty 

 in breathing. In six seconds every stitch we wore 

 was soaked through, and only the notebook, to- 

 bacco, and matches bestowed craftily in the crown 

 of the cork helmet escaped. The visible world was 

 dark and contracted. It seemed that nothing but 

 rain could anywhere exist; as though this storm must 

 fill all space to the horizon and beyond. Then it 

 swept on and we found ourselves steaming in bright 

 sunlight. The dry flat prairie (if this was the first 

 shower for some time) had suddenly become a lake 

 from the surface of which projected bushes and 

 clumps of grass. Every game trail had become the 

 water course of a swiftly running brook. 



But most pleasant were the evenings at Juja, 

 when, safe indoors, we sat and listened to the charge 

 of the storm's wild horsemen, and the thunder of its 

 drumming on the tin roof. The onslaughts were as 

 fierce and abrupt as those of Cossacks, and sv/eptby 

 as suddenly. The roar died away in the distance, 

 and we could then hear the steady musical dripping 

 of waters. 



Pleasant it was also to walk out from Juja in al- 

 most any direction. The compound, and the build- 

 ings and trees within it, soon dwindled in the dis- 

 tances of the great flat plain. Herds of game were 

 always in sight, grazing, lying down, staring in our 



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