24 SAFARI 



the roads were so smooth that we tried to go in high 

 gear, but f otrnd we had to chmb in low ; the ascent was 

 so gradual that it was deceptive. For mile after 

 mile we wound up and down rocky trails within a 

 few inches of the edge, looking down on little swiftly 

 coiu-sing streams, up at tiers of green -wooded ledges 

 and a maze of trembHng white scarves of waterfalls. 

 All around us the latter plunged and smoked and 

 bubbled from the green walls, as if designed by some 

 master scenic artist. 



Often when the road curved roimd the shoulder of 

 some hill or when we looked down a red vista of 

 cliffs, we could see, sometimes at fifty, sometimes at 

 seventy miles distance. Mount Kenya — green at the 

 foot and to three quarters of the way up, then red, 

 violet and blue in the craggy belt near the top, and 

 snowy white at the peak. Like an image of winter in 

 the arms of summer, she stood exactly on the 

 Equator; and we should have liked to have visited 

 her. For there, we knew, were all manner of beautiful- 

 birds and beasts, the most luxurious of flowers; and 

 we had once picked flowers that looked like violets 

 upspringing there by the elephants* trails. But as we 

 could not delay, with otu- caravan eating off its head 

 at Isiolo, we had to be content with the sight of those 

 noble snowy peaks dominating the plain wherever 

 we went. 



Late that night, after crossing several ice-cold 



