Chapter IT. 



party. Yet in tlit- tliiicl year after its iiiaiiguratioii, the 

 Uganda RaihAay counted 179,000 passengers. 



A European, landed for the first time in Africa, must 

 experience a strange sensation on finding himself suddenly 

 transported hv railway into the very midst of a landscape, 

 where every featm-e, people, animals and })lants unite to form the 

 picture which he had so often attempted to create by imagination. 



Immediately after crossing the bridge that joins Mombasa 

 to the continent, the railway begins its ascent to the tableland, 

 passing first through fields of mango, cocoaiiut, banana and all 

 the ])eautiful vegetation of the coast zone ; next, through the 

 midulating and bare plains of the Tarn desert, where thorny 

 bushes and a few euphorbias are the only plants ; then once 

 more through a fertile country among flowering fields and 

 woodlands. 



The stations, placed at intervals of 20 miles from one 

 another, consist each of a little wooden hut, beside a shed 

 standing alone in the wilderness. Every 100 miles is a central 

 station. Here the natives collect in numbers from the 

 neighboiu'ing villages to sell sugar-cane and bananas to the 

 third-class passengers. 



The train continues to climb ])y a tjentle grade, and the 

 snowy peaks of Kilimandjaro become visible to the south. The 

 landscape is monotonous, and the coimtrv infested by the 

 tsetse-fl.y. A little further on, for reasons imknown to us, 

 the dangerous insect disappears, and a veritable Eden opens to 

 the view of the traveller. This is the Tableland of Athi, the 

 famous game preserve of the Government, upon whose rich 

 pastures, dotted with umlirella acacias, graze peaceably, almost 

 witliout fear of the train, A\-hole herds of zebra, buftalo, onu, 

 antelope, and gazelle. Giraffes, too, may be seen peepmg timidly 



40 



