A DISTANT VIEW 



thousand feet above sea-level. From this point the 

 view is magnificent. Two thousand feet below is 

 the Great Rift Valley, through which we were to 

 operate, and which extends southwards through the 

 heart of the continent to the very home of African 

 adventure, the Zambezi itself. The great stretch of 

 plain is broken only by the two volcanic mountains, 

 Longonot, which is close to the line, and Suswa, away 

 in the distance. So clear is the air that one can see 

 for nearly a hundred miles. Objects a quarter that 

 distance off appeared quite close, but when we came 

 to trek across the veldt to them the twenty-five miles 

 turned out to be long ones. 



y From the top of the escarpment the line descends 

 again to Kijabe (meaning " wind "), which was the 

 end of our railway journey. 



At sunrise we were up. Fires were lighted — 

 one of the beauties of the veldt is that you may light 

 a fire anywhere if you can procure fuel — coffee made, 

 and the work of off-loading the baggage begun. 

 Perhaps this was even worse than the loading of the 



j day before had been, because now it was a matter 

 of apportioning the packages. In addition to the 

 carriers we had four bullock-wagons, not the great 



1 eighteen-foot-long transport wagon of the south, with 

 a " full soan " of sixteen or eighteen big oxen, but 

 a slightly smaller and more suitable kind, with fourteen 

 cattle. On the wagons were big water-drums, for 



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