FIVE HUNDRED NATIVES FLEE BEFORE ME 335 



beautiful banana and shrub-like bean plantations, over several 

 ridges and brooks, till we entered a broad valley through which 

 flowed a considerable stream known as the Maragua, on the 

 farther side of which we camped. The natives, who had 

 accompanied us in thousands, were perfectly harmless but full 

 of nervous dread of us. For instance, once when I dismounted 

 from my donkey, which my suffering often compelled me to do, 

 some five hundred of them fled before me in abject terror, whilst 

 another time I produced the same effect by merely stopping to 

 look at my pocket compass. 



At the beginning of this march we were reminded of our 

 predecessor in Kikuyuland, Dr. G. Fischer, recently deceased, 

 some of our people telling us that we had cut across his route, 

 which was in a westerly direction. According to our informant, 

 he had traversed Kikuyu in four days, fighting every inch of 

 the way. 



There was every sign of prosperity in the beautiful valley 

 in which we were camped, some twenty little villages dotting 

 the slopes and ridges in our immediate neighbourhood. 



On September 27 we passed through equally beautiful and 

 well-cultivated scenery. Some of the valleys had a slope of 

 about 530 feet, and we had to cross one rushing mountain brook 

 called the Tayahez. For the first time since we entered 

 Kikuyuland the sky was clear of clouds, and we had at last an 

 opportunity of looking down from a lofty riclge upon the grand 

 Alpine-like landscape for which we had so often longed in vain. 

 On the north-west rose the Settima chain with peaks some 

 13,100 feet high, whilst far away in the blue distance on the 

 north-east, but distinctly defined, was the lofty Mount Kenia, 

 the northern rival of Kilimanjaro, which cannot, however, 

 compete with it in beauty of outline or of general form. Seen 

 from the south it looks like a broad flat truncated pyramid, 

 and might be taken for a lofty plateau. Only on the extreme 



