284 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



to good purpose in our murderous designs on 

 the monkeys. One of these curious savages 

 clung to the trunk of a tree on the topmost 

 prongs of which a monkey was perched and well- 

 nigh hidden by boughs and leaves. The N'De- 

 robo chattered, and the colobus chattered back. 

 It was a tete-a-tete of the monkey folk, and I 

 watched, so intently interested that I well-nigh 

 forgot the loaded 12-bore in my hand. A few 

 seconds elapsed and the monkey man leapt 

 through stinging nettles and over tangled under- 

 growth to another tree, and there recommenced 

 his prattlings. After him the monkey sped, 

 and as the furry form flew through the air I fired. 

 The colobus fell with an almost sickening thud, 

 and I followed the N'Derobo to where he had 

 recommenced his simian gibberish at the base 

 of another tree monster. Another monkey 

 chattered back, and I longed that Darwin might 

 have been there to witness this strange conversa- 

 tion, so germane to Darwin's great belief. But 

 oh ! the treachery of it all ! The N'Derobo 

 was again speeding away and again a charge 

 of shot interrupted the following flight of the 

 colobus. 



The sun was sinking over the purple brow of 

 Longonot as we emerged from the forest with all 

 the monkey skins that we wished for. 



Below us Kijabe and the Kedong Valley, with 

 Mount Margaret and the sparsely bushed plains, 

 lay spread out like a giant map. To-morrow 

 the train would bear us again over the towering 

 wall of the Kikuyu escarpment to Nairobi, to 

 hotels and the madding crowd of those who live 

 with Nature as a neighbour and yet will know 

 her not. 



I turned my face to the mountain paths that 



