FROM GILGIL TO KENIA 269 



be likely to benefit the over-tired and fever-smitten people 

 of the Protectorate more than this. Malarial fevers are 

 not as deadly as they were a few years ago but even now 

 valuable lives are often lost because hard-worked men 

 have had no time to look out such a place for themselves, 

 or because when fever has prostrated them, they have 

 neither means nor energy to transport themselves to such 

 a mountain climate. 



If comfortable housing, good nursing and carefully 

 prepared food, at an altitude of say 10,000 feet, could be 

 had quickly and at reasonable cost, the benefit to all East 

 Africa would be immense. It is the recurring attack of 

 fever that eats away the life and energy of men often inval- 

 uable to the country. These are the very men who stand- 

 to their job, beat down the poison with quinine, and wait 

 and wait for the far-off home going, that will "surely set 

 everything right." So it would if it came soon enough, 

 but when it does come it comes often too late. Nothing, 

 not even a sea voyage, kills African malaria like real moun- 

 tain air. Mr. S. has been all over Kinan Kop and describes* 

 it as most beautiful. 



Mr. S.'s little stone mission house which he built with 

 his own hands, stands on a knoll, a third of a mile from 

 the water. We were camped at Boma less than two miles 

 away, and went over there one afternoon for tea. He had 

 a curious story to tell us of a leopard. 



Two nights before their little child, only five weeks 

 old, had cried a good deal; and that his wife might get 

 sleep he took it to the next room and tried to hush it. He 

 thought he heard a noise outside and went to the window. 

 On looking out into the darkness there was no moon 

 right before him, not two feet away, was a leopard's head, 

 the eyes looking straight into his own, while the forepaws 

 rested on the window-ledge. 



He had actually time to go into the next room, fetch 



