FROM GILGIL TO KENIA 267 



the turf as smooth as a cricket crease. So the swamp's 

 border is a beautiful thing, an almost level sweep of turf 

 that is ever green, which with a very gradual slope goes 

 down to meet the solid high upstanding wall of impenetrable 

 Papyrus. Impenetrable that wall is, even to the vast 

 bulk of the elephant, who will turn aside and make no 

 effort to penetrate it or to do more than bathe at its borders. 

 The hippo alone, heavy and short-legged, succeeds in 

 forcing a path to its dark solitudes. There is his safe 

 retreat and home. 



The country around abounds in game, but w r ater is 

 scarce. So this green rich water meadow is cropped by the 

 very best of nature's mowing machines which, moreover, as 

 it passes nightly over it, except in a few soft places, leaves 

 no mark of passing hoof to cut or roughen the level green. 



Here flowers grow abundantly and seem to bloom as 

 they do in favourable localities, the whole year round. 

 Primrose-coloured sweet little single things, thick low- 

 lying patches of African " for-get-me-not," bunches of 

 purple salvia, and many another. Here, when now and 

 again the flowing water has worn a channel round the foot 

 of the papyri wall, and for a little space the brown stream 

 widens out in the sunlight, beds of purple water lilies 

 are spread, and the shy water birds swim and feed. The 

 beautiful white egret and lesser egret are found here. 

 Why they and all birds (excepting the wild fowl on 

 Embellossett) are so wary I have no idea. It may be 

 that the natives have hunted them for food or feathers 

 long before the white man came. Whatever the reason 

 is, the birds, excepting partridge, quail and snipe are 

 strangely wild. 



In the evening you can hear as you stroll quietly round 

 the swamp's edges 



"The river horse as he crushed the reeds 

 Beside some hidden stream," 



