ACROSS THE MAU ESCARPMENT 67 



a buffalo, wounded and followed it, literally on hands and 

 knees, and the buffalo made no more trouble than the lioness. 

 I am glad my friend has gone back to lands where savage 

 game is not to be had, for he would end by being killed 

 most surely. That sort of luck is dangerous. 



In spite of the unfortunate engineer's experience, all 

 along the railroad line lions are still far from uncommon, 

 as the skins offered to passengers prove. The lions of Tsavo 

 are famous. And near Voi, one hundred miles from the 

 sea, Mr. Buxton, accompanied by his daughter, had to 

 ring his bicycle bell at one of them, he says, to make it 

 leave the road. 



On the Athi plains near Nairobi, and round Donyea 

 Sabuk mountain, I suppose more than two hundred lions 

 have been shot. At Naivasha and Nakura they may be 

 heard any night, and several are shot each year in both 

 these localities. Here, lately, herdsmen are taking up land, 

 and where herdsmen come lions are rightfully doomed. 

 They are to them vermin of a dangerous order, and if rifle 

 cannot reach them, poison can. 



On the Mau escarpment some splendid dark-maned 

 specimens are occasionally shot. The cold of that high 

 region seems to result in a heavier and blacker mane than 

 lions generally grow. But the farmer is there in force. 



Now that the Mau is passed, all settlement is left behind. 

 The farmer and cattle owner have not yet taken possession 

 of this wonderfully fertile country. Game abounds, and 

 lion till quite lately have had things all their own way. 

 Till three years ago this country was a closed district. 

 No sportsmen or settlers were allowed to enter the land. 

 The Nandi* war was in progress, and sefari would have 



*The Nandi, a large tribe akin to the Massai, and always at war with them, could not resist the 

 temptation offered them by the scarcely guarded railroad that ran through the middle of their territory. 

 Here was an opportunity to provide themselves with very superior quality of iron for their broad spear 

 heads. Spikes were to be had for the taking. If an unfortunate Indian track walker raised a protest 

 nothing was easier than to test the temper of the new spear head on him. So the Nandi treated the 

 road as a convenient iron mine till, remonstrances proving useless, they had to be thrashed. 



