CHAPTER VI 
A BUFFALO HUNT BY THE KAMITI 
Heatley’s Ranch comprises twenty thousand acres 
lying between the Rewero and Kamiti Rivers. It is 
seventeen miles long, and four across at the widest 
place. It includes some bits of natural scenery as 
beautiful as can well be imagined ; and though Heatley, 
a thorough farmer and the son and grandson of farmers, 
was making it a successful farm, with large herds of 
cattle, much-improved stock, hundreds of acres under 
cultivation, a fine dairy, and the like, yet it was also 
a game reserve such as could not be matched either in 
Europe or America. From Juja Farm we marched 
a dozen miles, and pitched our tent close beside the 
Kamiti. 
The Kamiti is a queer little stream, running for most 
of its course through a broad swamp of tall papyrus. 
Such a swamp is almost impenetrable. The papyrus 
grows to a height of over twenty feet, and the stems 
are so close together that in most places it is impossible 
to see anything at a distance of six feet. Ten yards 
from the edge, when within the swamp, I was wholly 
unable to tell in which direction the open ground lay, 
and could get out only by either following my back 
track or listening for voices. Underfoot the mud and 
water are hip-deep. This swamp was the home of a 
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