814 IN AFRICA 



boy, and we got another boy from the hotel to go 

 along for general utility purposes. Into this ve- 

 hicle we placed our guns, and at seven o'clock in 

 the morning drove out of the town. In fifteen or 

 twenty minutes we had passed through the streets 

 and had reached the pleasant roads of the open 

 plains. Soon we passed the race-track and then 

 bowled merrily along between peaceful barbed-wire 

 fences. Occasional groups of Kikuyus were tramp- 

 ing along the road, bringing in eggs or milk to 

 Nairobi. A farm-house or two lay off to either side, 

 and once or twice we passed boys herding little 

 bunches of ostriches. 



At about a quarter to eight we drove up the tree- 

 lined avenue of a farm-house and a pleasant- faced 

 woman responded to our knock. We asked for per- 

 mission to shoot on the farm and were told that we 

 were quite welcome to shoot as much as we wished. 



Five minutes later, less than an hour's drive from 

 Nairobi, we drove past a herd of nearly sixty im- 

 palla. They watched us gravely from a distance of 

 two hundred yards. At this point we left the well- 

 traveled road and drove into the short prairie grass 

 that carpeted the Athi Plains. The carriage 

 bumped pleasantly along, and as we reached a little 

 rise a few hundred feet away, the great stretch of 

 the plains lay spread out before us. 



Mount Kenia, eighty or ninety miles north, was 

 clear and bright with its snow-capped peaks spark- 

 ling in the early sunlight. Off to its left rose the 

 Aberdare Range, with the dominating peak of 



