KIKUYU TO THE VICTORIA. 35 



have found this since to be a very deadly shot, as 

 the animal cannot move from the spot. 



My previous experiences as a hunter had been 

 maddening. They usually consisted of crawling 

 in breathless and perspiring silence on my 

 stomach for about 500 yards (always losing my 

 pipe in the process), to be rewarded, on cautiously 

 raising my head above the grass, by the view of 

 a hartebeest shambling awkwardly away with 

 a derisive and malevolent look in his eye — the 

 characteristic expression of this, the most ugly of 

 all the antelopes. 



With the summit of the Nandi range the 

 traveller leaves the high, healthy Masai highlands 

 and descends to the great Victoria Nyanza region. 

 Due west, stretching right across to the base of 

 Ruwenzori, is a vast plateau which hardly seems 

 to reach 5,000 feet, and is usually only from 3,900 

 to 4,100 feet in altitude. The whole of this mass 

 of material, 1,000 feet thick and 400 miles broad, 

 has been apparently gradually carried away by the 

 Nile to form the vast alluvial of Lower Egypt. 

 The plants from Abyssinia, which had crossed to 

 the Masai highlands and taken refuge from the 

 changed climate in Kilimandjaro and Kenia, were 

 thus separated from their congeners. Those that 

 remained were then obliged to change their habits, 

 seasons of flowering, &c, and became the new 

 species which now inhabit the Victoria region, 

 the Central Been Gebiete of German botanists. 



