278 THE GUASO NYERO [ch. xi 
oxeye daisies, and clover. That night we camped so 
high that it was really cold, and we welcomed the 
roaring fires of juniper logs. 
We rose at sunrise. It was a glorious morning, clear 
and cool, and as we sat at breakfast, the table spread in 
the open on the dew-drenched grass, we saw in the 
south-east the peak of Kenia, and through the high, 
transparent air the snow-fields seemed so close as almost 
to dazzle our eyes. To the north and west we looked 
far out over the wide, rolling plains to a wilderness of 
mountain ranges, barren and jagged. All that day and 
the next we journeyed eastward, almost on the Equator. 
At noon the overhead sun burned with torrid heat; but 
with the twilight—short compared to the long northern 
twilights, but not nearly as short as tropical twilights 
are often depicted—came the cold, and each night the 
frost was heavy. The country was untenanted by man. 
In the afternoon of the third day we began to go down¬ 
hill, and hour by hour the flora changed. At last we 
came to a broad belt of woodland, where the strange 
trees of many kinds grew tall and thick. Among them 
were camphor-trees, and trees with gouty branch tips, 
bearing leaves like those of the black walnut, and 
panicles of lilac flowers, changing into brown seed 
vessels ; and other trees, with clusters of purple flowers, 
and the seeds or nuts enclosed in hard pods or seed 
vessels like huge sausages. 
On the other side of the forest we came suddenly out 
on the cultivated fields of the Wa-Meru, who, like the 
Kikuyu, till the soil; and among them, farther down, 
was Meru Boma, its neat, picturesque buildings beauti¬ 
fully placed among green groves and irrigated fields, 
and looking out from its cool elevation over the hot 
valleys beneath. It is one of the prettiest spots in East 
