WHERE ROOSEVELT WILL HUNT 



209 



tation, owing to the 

 heavy rainfall. Then he 

 will travel through a 

 more arid country of 

 thorn bushes and Eu- 

 phorbias, until he reaches 

 a plateau region of 

 plains, mountain ridges, 

 and stream valleys with 

 fine forests. 



Then the railway de- 

 scends into the Great 

 Rift Valley, which is a 

 depression twenty to 

 forty miles broad, ex- 

 tending from the south- 

 ern part of German East 

 Africa to the Red Sea. 

 It is as though some 

 convulsion of the earth 

 had caused a section of 

 the plateau to slip down 

 about 3,000 feet below 

 the general level. 



On looking at a relief 

 map of northeast Africa it almost sug- 

 gests the idea that nature had been con- 

 sidering whether she would not cut off 

 another slice of Africa in addition to 

 Madagascar. Madagascar may have 

 been originally separated from Africa in 

 that way. In this curious depression of 

 the "Rift Valley" is a series of lakes, salt 

 in some instances and fresh in others. 

 Particularly noteworthy is a salt lake 

 named Lake Hannington, after a mis- 

 sionary bishop murdered by the natives. 

 (This commemoration was rather inap- 

 propriate because he was killed at a dis- 

 tance of nearly four hundred miles from 

 this place.) Lake Hannington is visited 

 at the present day by tourists who come 

 to see the great number of 

 which make their home here. 



STREET SCENE IN MOMBASA 



There is a system of narrow-gauge tram-lines running along 

 the main roads, with branches running off to every house. Each 

 official keeps his private trolley, in which he is pushed by coolies 

 to and from his daily work. No white man in Mombasa walks 

 if he can possibly avoid doing so. Photo from David Fairchild. 



flamingoes 



A WONDERFUL, COLONY OE FLAMINGOES 



On Lake Hannington it is no exag- 

 geration to say that there must be close 

 upon a million flamingoes. These birds 

 are mainly collected around the northern 

 end of the lake and on the submerged 

 banks which break up the deep blue- 

 green of its still surface. The shores 



where they cluster, and these banks in 

 the middle of the lake where they are 

 above the water's edge, are dazzling 

 white with the birds' guano. These fla- 

 mingoes breed on a flat plain of mud 

 about a mile broad at the north end of 

 Lake Hannington, where their nests, in 

 the form of little mounds of mud with 

 feathers plastered on the hollowed top, 

 appear like innumerable mole-hills. 



The birds, having hitherto been abso- 

 lutely unmolested by man, are quite 

 tame. They belong to a rosy species 

 (Phocniconais minor) which is slightly 

 smaller than the Mediterranean flamingo, 

 but exquisitely beautiful in plumage. 

 The adult bird has a body and neck of 

 rosy pink, the color of sunset clouds. 

 The beak is scarlet and purple ; the legs 

 are deep rose-pink inclining to scarlet. 

 Underneath the black-pinioned wings the 

 larger feathers are scarlet-crimson, 

 while beautiful crimson crescents tip the 

 tertiaries and wing-coverts on the upper 

 surface of the wings. Apparently the 

 mature plumage is not reached until the 

 birds are about three years old. The 

 younger flamingoes very soon attain the 



