252 ON SAFARI 



Makindu 



This is a country of close scrub and bush, almost 

 viewless, and at this season (March) bare of game 

 beyond a few kongoni, some waterbuck and small 

 antelopes. There was old spoor of giraffe, and also of 

 eland, more recent ; but we saw neither, nor any sign of 

 Oryx ccdlotis, of which we were specially in search. 



This dense bush swarmed with guinea-fowl and bio; 

 brown francolins (i^ schuetti), as well as the great l^are- 

 throated spur-fowl [Pternistes infuscatus), red as 

 cock-plieasants, that clattered as tliey rose. There 

 appeared to be two distinct species of this latter ; and 

 we also observed hornbills, coucal or bush-cuckoo, green 

 pigeons, helmet-shrikes with floppy flight, and most of 

 the other birds already recorded at Simba. 



A few miles out, completely surrounded by bush, 

 we came on the Government farm, where cotton, fil)re 

 and other produce were growing luxuriantly, and where 

 there was abundant water with a complete system of 

 irrigation. Yet it was abandoned — presumably for some 

 sufiicient reason, though none was apparent. Makindu, 

 when it formed " rail-head," had some little importance, 

 but has now fallen from its (never very) high estate. 



Since writing the above, I read in Blue-book, March 

 1907, that Makindu Farm was finally abandoned on 

 March 31, 1906 — a few days after we were there — 

 owing to the extreme unhealthiness of the site, the 

 managers and staff being constantly down with fever, 

 and the whole stock of cattle killed by the tsetse-fly. 

 "The natives of the neighbouring hills," adds the Blue- 

 book, with fine official humour, " have confined their 

 interest in the farm to raidino- most of the live stock." 



o 



Sultan Hamud 



A game-like country, prettily situated in a wide gap 

 between enclosing mountains. Herds of giraffe charac- 



