5 o IN THE GRIP OF THE NYIKA CHAP. 



by a second Wakamba chief with about a dozen 

 of his people. He promised to bring any food we 

 wanted, so I decided to wait here another day. 



While rambling round the vicinity in the afternoon 

 I came upon an old deserted boma with a few sharp 

 stakes set up inside it; this led me to speculate as 





INTERSPERSED HERE AND THERE WITH GROVES OF TREEC." 



to what they could be for, and I wondered if it 

 could be a cunning native trap of some kind. I 

 remembered a curious incident that occurred some 

 years ago at a place called Kew, where an engineer 

 was encamped inside a somewhat similar boma. As 

 a rule a fire was lighted in the enclosure every night, 

 but on one particular evening the engineer happened 



