WITH FLASH-LIGHT AND RIFLE 



It is no hardship to travel through the steppe during 

 the rainy season, though the traveller is often forced 

 to make his way through trackless thickets, thorny 

 bushes, and sharp grasses reaching above his head. 



In the dry season travel is slow and dangerous, water 

 being scarce and often entirely lacking. Before you 

 start out, you had better make sure of your next water- 

 ing-place. Often, where you expect to find one, you 

 will discover a dried - up depression in the ground. 

 Moreover, your carriers are apt to be very thirsty after 

 a day's march of over eighteen miles, carrying up to 

 sixty pounds on their heads. These men are very pa- 

 tient, indeed, and of great endurance. They may be- 

 come tired and exhausted, but they will not leave their 

 burdens behind to hasten to quench their almost un- 

 bearable thirst. They know full well that their rafiki 

 (friends), who reach the camping-ground first, will hurry 

 back to them with gourd-bottles well filled with the 

 precious liquid. 



Like the Tundra of Asia, so the East African Nyika 

 may attract the venturesome traveller and hunter for 

 a time, and, at times, entice him to come back to it. 

 But the steppe will not permanently hold the visitor 

 from a temperate clime. For long residence might 

 mean death — death by that slow but sure destroyer, 

 malaria. 



