BRITISH EAST AFRICA 181 



And so it is. Kenia has an enormous base. 

 Its foothills extend for many miles aromid its 

 snow-sheathed pinnacle — sentinels, as it were, 

 posted to protect the serene majesty of this 

 Queen of peaks. Over these rugged slopes the 

 path to Meru twists and turns, across tumbling 

 streams, over little wooden bridges, across 

 mountain tops, through bush-clad valleys. 

 Sometimes your pony's ears prick themselves 

 to the rising sun, sometimes to the Nyika-bound 

 North, sometimes to cloud-wrapped Kenia. 

 When the air is clear and cool and crisp, the icy 

 summit stands out so boldly against the blue 

 of the equatorial sky, and the rugged rocks are 

 so well defined that it seems but a few hours' 

 march to the snowline. But when the swirling, 

 sombre morning mists wrap her in a shroud she 

 looks far, far distant. Even the foothills make 

 the heart feel faint, and the pony's strides 

 seem slow and halting as the measured notes 

 of a funeral march. 



Some days, when hunting on the Guaso Nyiro, 

 I would look southwards, and there far up in 

 the higher heavens the snowy summit pierced 

 the dome of the sullen sky. At times a ray of 

 golden light would fall on the proud pinnacle and 

 cover its snow raiment with a scintillating glory, 

 and the heavens would burn with the reflected 

 beauty of this exquisite " Lady of the Snows." 

 I grew to look for Kenia, and when her snow 

 face was hidden I felt as though some momentous 

 friend had vanished. On the Nyeri road I 

 took my last look at her. The snow crags 

 appeared more steep and forbidding than they 

 had seemed from the Embu-Meru side. But if 

 the beauty of the mountain was tempered by an 

 aspect of rugged defiance, the queen-like grace 



