EXPERIENCES IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA. 699 
than that journey through those Athi Plains ; and when about 
/ o ( lock in the morning we suddenly saw seven enormous 
(diaffes cantering slowly away irom the line my enthusiasm 
knew no bounds. 
1* °r thiee or lour hours we were continuously passing huge 
herds of Zebras and Hartebeeste who often merely lifted their 
heads to gaze at the passing train and then resumed their 
feeding, the stately Grant’s Gazelle, the more gaily marked 
1 hompson’s Gazelle mingled with the Zebras, whilst a few 
Wilderbeeste galloped off in a cloud of dust and frightened 
a pair of Ostriches which until that moment had paid little 
or no attention to the passing train ; it is exactly like some 
enormous Zoo turned loose, and the great difficulty is to 
realize that they are all really wild ; before I left England 
I had been told of the extraordinary quantities of game to 
be seen from the railway line, but 1 had never imagined it 
could be anything approaching the reality ; so this wonderful 
panorama continues until Nairobi is reached, and here we 
got out of the train with all our baggage for it was from 
Nairobi we were to start on our first shooting expedition. 
Nairobi is, without exception, the ugliest town I've ever 
seen ; it is a collection of tin and corrugated iron shops and 
houses, a bank, a station, and a church, with variousGovernment 
houses and official buildings, and it has been placed in the 
middle of open country, on ground which four years ago was 
teeming with Lions and Leopards, in fact, only a few weeks 
before I arrived, a large Leopard was seen calmly walking 
down the main street. We stopped at Nairobi three days, in 
which all the arrangements for our “ saffari ” or shooting 
expedition were made, porters engaged, donkeys bought and 
stores and supplies arranged, and early on the morning of 
January 21st we set out, actually to begin our journey into 
the wilds of Africa, and as we rode out of Nairobi at about 
5 o’clock in the morning I wondered what fate would have in 
store for us and what adventures would have befallen us 
before we returned to houses, people and civilization. 
Quickly leaving the town behind us we jtroceeded in an 
easterly direction and before a couple of hours had passed 
