698 MR. G. H. GURNEY ON NATURAL HISTORY 
funny little open train en route for Nairobi, three hundred and 
twenty-five miles away ; this journey takes a day and a night, 
and to a stranger from England, who like myself, was seeing 
tropical Africa for the first time, it is indeed an amazing and 
astounding journey. 
For the first fifty miles or so we passed through magnificent 
tropical woods of enormous trees, chiefly composed of 
Cocoanut Palms, Bananas, and Mangoes with their splendid 
dark green leaves in many places brightened with bushes of 
flowering shrubs and openings in which were picturesque 
native huts and villages, while gorgeous birds flew quickly 
from tree to tree ; we crossed over many small rivers and 
ravines, and then the aspect of the country gradually changed 
and we got into rolling down-like country covered with thick 
bush and scrub in which the most characteristic features 
were the tall sickly looking Euphorbia trees, and queer shaped 
Baobob trees looking like huge inverted carrots ; but it would 
be tedious to go through all the varied scenery we passed 
on that journey as we sped over bare sandy plains, through 
dense forests, across undulating bush country ; pulling up at 
a little wayside station every twenty miles or so. 
When about 180 miles from Nairobi the train enters the vast 
rolling Athi Plains which are great stretches of sandy country 
with hardly a tree to be seen anywhere ; here, owing to the open- 
ness of the country, game, and by game I mean, many kinds 
of wild animals, may be seen in incredible numbers, feeding 
on either side of the railway line, for the Government has, very 
rightly, made certain large tracts of country into sanctuaries 
or game-reserves, within whose precincts no animal may be 
killed or shot, and the Uganda Railway passes through one 
of the best known of these reserves ; and for almost one hundred 
miles, the traveller may, from the windows of his railway 
carriage, enjoy the extraordinary sight of large herds of wild 
animals, which are seldom seen outside Zoological Gardens, 
feeding freely and without fear, close to the railway line ; 
these herds of game may be counted not in one and twos but 
literally in hundreds. I do not think amongst all the wonder- 
ful things I saw in East Africa, anything interested me more 
