268 THE LAND OF THE LION 



&s Longfellow very accurately wrote in his New England 

 study; and very completely here does the swamp swallow 

 and hide the strong stream. Here too the Grant, the 

 Tommy and the impala come down to drink, and here 

 nightly the lion's deep hunting call sounds. About once 

 a year elephants appear on its borders. Most probably 

 these come from blue Mount Kinan Kop some fifty miles 

 away, for Kinan Kop still shelters many bands of elephant 

 :among its bamboo forests and, were it not set over against 

 Kenia, would be a mountain worth coming far to see. 



I have written elsewhere of Mr. Stauffacher's mission 

 'work. His little mission house stands on a rocky knoll 

 by the swamp border, and his garden occupies a little 

 corner of its green fringe. He has well tested the valuable 

 properties of this hard damp, rich soil, as its roses and 

 vegetables prove, and here with the help, most readily 

 given, of the civil officer, Mr. H. B. Partington, he intends 

 to carry out a modest scheme of irrigation which should be 

 both easy and inexpensive to accomplish, and would give 

 some practical evidence to the wandering Massai of the 

 productiveness of their land. One irrigation ditch, taking 

 the water from the river, just before it enters the swamp, 

 would irrigate hundreds of acres of as rich land as can be 

 found anywhere. And since the Guasi Narok is fed 

 almost entirely by mountain springs its flow can be counted 

 on. Mr. Stauffacher also mentioned to me another 

 scheme which this mission cherishes. That is to establish 

 a sanatorium on the shoulder of Kinan Kop. The 

 mountain is very accessible, and many spacious plateau 

 :and slopes are to be found situated well above the frost 

 line. Water will sometimes freeze as much as an inch 

 at night. The country below is (for Africa) densely 

 inhabited and well cultivated. Food supplies are abundant 

 and the mountain springs are clear and cold as mountan 

 springs should be. I cannot fancy any place that would 



