204 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



get within range of the Jackson's the zebra would 

 tear off with a gallop that shook the earth, and 

 away would go the Jackson's with them. At 

 length, after trudging miles and miles, I got a 

 long shot at a cow and dropped her with a bullet 

 through the heart. It was well-nigh dark, and 

 when I returned to camp at the Rongui River 

 night had fallen over the land, and, although on 

 the Equator, it was most bitterly cold. To the 

 east and above us Kenia raised her snow-draped 

 head, and the blasts that blew from off her 

 frozen summit were like the winds of the Pole. 

 It was indeed a six-blanket climate, and woe 

 betide the unknowing man who may hunt on the 

 Nyeri plains with a mosquito net and a counter- 

 pane as his bedclothes ! 



From Nyeri the " safari " marched through 

 the southern foothills of Kenia and into Fort 

 Hall. A few miles farther on we boarded the 

 Fort Hall motor 'bus, and arrived at the Norfolk 

 Hotel about two o'clock in the morning, after 

 one of the most cramped and tiring rides it has 

 ever been my unfortunate lot to endure. Two 

 days later the porters arrived in charge of 

 Mohamed the headman, who, as a great privilege, 

 had been allowed to ride my Abyssinian pony. 

 Mohamed had managed to give the willing little 

 animal a sore back, for which I cursed him 

 roundly. 



After our sojourn in the wilds, Nairobi, with 

 its stone-built offices and residences and iron- 

 roofed stores, seemed a colossal place — almost 

 a metropolis, in fact. And yet, although it is 

 the capital of the East African Protectorate, 

 it cannot (or could not at the time of which I 

 write) boast of one thousand white inhabitants. 

 Its population for the greater part consists of 



