78 IN AFRICA 



lished when we arrived. At other times we arrived 

 early and picked out a spot, where ticks and malaria 

 were not likely to be bothersome. 



We usually camped near a river. Our first camp 

 was on the Athi Plains, near Nairobi ; our second at 

 Nairobi Falls, where the river plunges down a 

 sixty-foot drop in a spot of great beauty. Our 

 third camp was on the Induruga River, in a beauti- 

 ful but malarious spot; our fifth was on the Thika 

 Thika River, where it was so cold in the morning 

 that the vapor of our breathing was visible ; and our 

 sixth on a wind-blown hill where a whirlwind blew 

 down our mess tent and scattered the cook's fire 

 ^ until the whole grass veldt was in furious flames. 

 It took a hundred men an hour to put out the 

 flames. 



Our next camp was at Fort Hall, where a poison- 

 ous snake came into my tent while I was working. 

 It crawled under my chair and was by my feet when 

 I saw it. It was chased out and killed in the grass 

 near my tent, and a porter cut out the fangs to 

 show me. For a day or two I looked before put- 

 ting on my shoes, but after that I ceased to think 

 of it. 



After that time our camps were along the Tana 

 River, in a beautiful country thronged with game, 

 but, unhappily, a district into which comparatively 

 few hunters come on account of the fever that is 

 said to prevail there. We were obliged to leave our 

 mules at Fort Hall because it was considered cer- 

 tain death to them if we took them into this fly belt. 



