290 THE GUASO NYERO [ch. xi 
although neither the rocks nor the rotten soil seemed 
to hamper the movements of the game. Here and 
there were treeless stretches. Elsewhere there were 
occasional palms, and trees thirty or forty feet high, 
seemingly cactus or aloes, which looked even more like 
candelabra than the euphorbia which is thus named; 
and a scattered growth of thorn-trees and bushes. The 
thorn-trees were of many kinds. One bore only a few 
leathery leaves, the place of foliage being taken by the 
mass of poisonous-looking, fleshy spines which, together 
with the ends of the branches, were bright green. The 
camel-thorn was completely armed with little, sharply 
hooked thorns which tore whatever they touched, 
whether flesh or clothes. Then there were the mimosas, 
with long, straight thorn spikes ; they are so plentiful 
in certain places along the Guaso Nyero that almost all 
the lions have festering sores in their paws because of 
the spikes that have broken off in them. In these 
thorn-trees the weaver birds had built multitudes of 
their straw nests, each with its bottle-shaped mouth 
towards the north, away from the direction of the 
prevailing wind. 
Each morning we were up at dawn, and saw the 
heavens redden and the sun flame over the rim of the 
world. All day long we rode and walked across the 
endless flats, save that at noon, when the sky was like 
molten brass, we might rest under the thin half-shade 
of some thorn-tree. As the shadows lengthened and 
the harsh, pitiless glare softened, we might turn camp- 
ward ; or we might hunt until the sun went down, and 
the mountains in the far-off west, and the sky above 
them, grew faint and dim with the hues of fairyland. 
Then we would ride back through the soft, warm 
beauty of the tropic night, the stars blazing overhead 
