CHAPTER XII 



BRITISH EAST AFRICA (CONTINUED) I 

 TOWARDS THE LORIAN 



The northern Guaso Nyiro river certainly 

 may be accounted one of the finest tracts of 

 big-game country in Africa. To me it ranks 

 equally with the valley of the great Luangwa, 

 that burning rift in the surface of North-Eastern 

 Rhodesia which cuts through Africa from Lake 

 Tanganyika to the Zambesi. These are, indeed, 

 great natural " zoos " — menageries where moun- 

 tains and forests replace unsightly cages. The 

 rugged mass of Laishamunye that frowns down on 

 the Guaso Nyiro from the north indeed might well 

 have been Ararat, on which Noah's zoological 

 houseboat came to rest, and where the animals 

 trooped out exultant — and presumably hungry. 



Grand old Guaso Nyiro of the far-distant 

 North ! As I write I can see it meandering among 

 green oases, sweeping round sun-scorched tongues 

 of arid desert, coursing beneath great, rocky 

 buttresses, or flowing peacefully to the east to 

 lose itself in the Lorian swamp. Memory brings 

 to my ears the music of the wind among the palms 

 on its banks. Visions of oryx and zebra in 

 herds to be numbered by the hundred, of the 

 wily gerenuk wending his cautious way through 

 the bush-belts, of the giant giraffe and the ugly 

 rhino — these flit before me. Here, indeed, are 

 the wilds — the land of life unfettered — and the 



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