148 
TIIE KILIMA-NJABO EXPEDITION. 
reel flowers, primrose-yellow and purple-centred hibis¬ 
cuses, creamy-white clematis, with thick, woolly petals, 
and many lovely blossoms of balsams, and a mauve- 
white thing like phlox—quite a glowing mass of colour 
in my natural garden, which makes me hotly refute 
the theory that the tropics cannot produce flower- 
shows equal to those of the temperate zone. 
I come back in answer to the earnest appeals of 
Virapan, who assures me breakfast is getting cold, but 
I must yet delay my sitting down till my floral trea¬ 
sures are placed in water, and put in the centre of my 
repast. I must describe to you my breakfast-table. 
I have a right to pride myself on its appearance, as 
most of the good things it bears are our own local 
productions and not imported from Europe, and I 
want it to preach a little lesson that will show how 
much Africa may be made to yield in the way of com¬ 
fort when comfort is sought. Of course this applies 
more to the resident than to the traveller, who cannot 
stay long enough in a place to develop its resources. 
Firstly, there is a nice snowy cloth spread over the 
table, then the silver is bright, and the enamelled iron 
plates are clean, all details which are due to a little 
supervision over servants’ work. The grateful steam 
of coffee comes from a pretty cafetiere , a little white 
jug contains hot milk from my own cow, there is a pat 
of fresh butter of our own making lying in a cool green 
leaf, a nicely-baked loaf, made from maize-flour and 
eggs (and in a long parenthesis I might explain that 
the flour is of our own grinding and sifting, and the 
eggs are from our own poultry); and lastly, there are 
grilled kidneys from a sheep we killed yesterday, fried 
bananas as an entremet , and a bowl of honey. 
Of all these delicacies, only coffee and sugar are 
