MOMBASSA TO LION LAND 7 



Having now reached Nairobi, the usual starting 

 point for sefaris, I may as well try in a few words, to 

 give some general idea of the country, and especially 

 of that part of it, where the best scenery and best hunting 

 are to be found. 



A volcanic upheaval has raised a wide plateau in East 

 Africa far above the level of the continent. Roughly 

 speaking, that plateau runs three hundred miles east and 

 west. It begins about two hundred miles from the sea, 

 and slopes down on the west to Lake Victoria. North it 

 falls away toward Abyssinia and Italian Somaliland. 



In the middle it is divided by a huge cleft, the great 

 Rift Valley (the eastern end of this valley is called the 

 Kedong) and in this valley lie a string of lakes Naivasha, 

 the most easterly; Rudolph, the most westerly; Nukurn and 

 Baringo lying between. The Rift Valley is well named. 

 It is a mighty crack in the world crust, running, as geologists 

 have traced it, all the way from Lake Rudolph to the 

 Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea. On either side of this 

 valley rise two lofty chains of mountains. On the western 

 side these are called the Mau Escarpment; on the east the 

 Kikuyu Escarpment and the Aberdare Range. Moun- 

 tainous branches and spurs from these ranges run back 

 into the plains to west and east and two fine mountains 

 standing far out from the tumult of tumbled and crossing 

 ridges, dominate all other mountain peaks. These are 

 Elgon on the west, looking down on Lake Victoria, and 

 beautiful, lonely snowy Kenia, rising above the wide 

 Laikipia plateau on the east. I shall speak of Kenia 

 later. Now our faces are set toward the high table lands 

 lying beyond the forest of the Mau. Here but three years 

 ago entrance to the traveller and sportsman was forbidden. 

 The Nandi, a numerous and warlike tribe, were in process 

 of being chastened. Several hundreds of them were 

 killed, their crops burned and many of their cattle taken 



