180 A NATURALIST IN MID-AFRICA. 



and other thorny scrub. It is an excessively dry, 

 waterless region, while the former subdivision is 

 very wet and humid. 



The boundaries of these two sub-districts are 

 extremely difficult to draw on a map, because the 

 second reaches the sea towards Somaliland, and 

 even much farther south ; Mombasa Island is very 

 similar to the Euphorbia region, and Kilindini har- 

 bour is quite a typical example of the coast jungle. 



It is a matter of enormous practical importance, 

 however, to point out this difference, as the first 

 sub-district is extremely fertile, while the second 

 is, so far as one can see, of no commercial use 

 ivhatever. 



The second division is the Coffee zone, of 

 from 3,000 to 5,000 feet, which begins before 

 Kibwezi and ends before Matschakos. This is 

 in nature a scrub region, but does not contain a 

 large proportion of those thorny shrubs which 

 are characteristic of the second sub-district of the 

 Cocoanut zone already alluded to. The scrub is 

 quite of an ordinary character, showing traces 

 neither of a very humid atmosphere nor of a very 

 arid one. 



The third division, or Colony zone, contains 

 the Masai highlands, by which term I mean part 

 of Ukambane, the whole of Kikuyu, and the Masai 

 country above the level of 5,000 feet or more 

 clearly from Nzowi to the western side of the 

 Nandi range, along the ordinary caravan route. 



