12 THE LAND OF THE LION 



and there, served only to reveal the confused piles of tents, 

 boxes, guns, fodder, and all the innumerable odds and 

 ends that are essential if you would make a prolonged 

 stay in a country far from supplies. Londiani is one of 

 the higher points on the line, and the glass must have been 

 almost at the freezing point. David Rebman's* energy 

 even, was not proof against that bitter fog laden cold, 

 and when I crawled out of my carriage I found him, too, 

 crouching among his blanket-covered men. 



Well, the welcome sun came out at last. And the 

 .glorious African morning broke, cloudless, opalescent 

 steamy vapour rises from grass as yellow and tall as ripe up- 

 standing English wheat that fills the hollows, clothes the 

 sides of the steep hills, and pushes right up against the 

 railway platform. 



Two long swaying, struggling ox teams crawl slowly 

 away, half hidden in the golden morning haze. The 

 numbed sefari shakes itself into order, and, breakfastless, 

 we take the road on our last stage of the way to the Nzoia 

 or Guash'ngishu country whither we are bound. The 

 Sergoit rock, which may be said to mark it, lies some 

 seventy miles away. 



Here I will say a word, as, indeed, I shall have occasion 

 to do again and again, for the often well-abused sefari 

 porter. I say we all started breakfastless, but in my 

 friend's case and my own, we had dined fairly well at 

 Nakuru the night before. Our porters were not so fortu- 

 nate railway travelling is slow in British East Africa. 

 The single line is of narrow gauge, and there is of 

 necessity much shunting and many stops. Nairobi was 

 only a little more than one hundred miles away, but we 

 had entrained there early the morning before. Head- 

 man, Somali gunboys, tentboys, cooks, Swahili, many 



*David Rebman was my headman, on my previous hunting trip to the country. I give some- 

 thing of his quite eventful history in another article. He is a quite first class headman. 



