ON THE JAMBENI RANGE 



thus spread out in panorama before me, seemed, from this 

 bird's-eye view, to be more or less open and fairly level, though 

 hills and ranges were also to be seen. Its yellow colour, denot- 

 ing dryness, contrasted strongly with the verdant hills we were 

 on ; but this almost untrodden wilderness, stretching away 

 to the far northern horizon where the tips of hazy peaks, just 

 visible, seemed to beckon one on, had a wonderful fascination 

 for me. I longed to pry into its mysteries. What especially 

 attracted me was the knowledge that, save for a few scattered 

 Ndorobos, it was uninhabited — an immense sanctuary still held 

 possession of, as in primeval ages, by the (to me) more inter- 

 esting denizens of the animal world. 



Embe is a beautiful and fertile country, though very broken. 

 Many kraals are dotted about and there is a good deal of 

 cultivation, particularly banana groves. On the steeper slopes 

 there are woods with some fine trees in which plantain eaters 

 call, while grotesque great hornbills sail across from cover to 

 cover, alternately flapping and gliding with peculiar switchback 

 flight, uttering their loud peevish plaint, the curiously character- 

 istic cries of both harmonising exquisitely with the spirit of 

 their surroundings like appropriate music — so sympathetic a 

 composer is nature. But most of the hillsides are covered 

 with a sort of jungle of what I should describe as giant weeds, 

 where probably the timber has been cleared, the open valleys 

 between being carpeted with the most lovely short, thick, 

 springy turf, full of clover, than which nothing could be more 

 delightfully green and soft and sweet looking. It is real sward 

 from which you may cut a genuine tough sod — none of your 

 tufts of grass with bare spaces between, — in fact more like an 

 ideal English pasture than African veldt. Here the natives 

 graze their few cattle (little humped beasts) and donkeys, and 

 their more numerous goats and sheep : all very small but sleek 

 and fat. The area of grass and jungle respectively depends 

 upon the amount of stock : when cattle are numerous the pas- 

 ture extends and the jungle is gradually conquered, but when 



