XXXIII.

OVER THE LIKIPIA ESCARPMENT.


Owing to an outbreak of bubonic plague, and consequent quarantine, we
had recruited our men outside Nairobi, and had sent them, in charge of
C., to a little station up the line.

Billy and I saw to the loading of our equipment on the train, and at two
o'clock, in solitary state, set forth. Our only attendants were Mohammed
and Memba Sasa, who had been fumigated and inoculated and generally
Red-Crossed for the purpose.

The little narrow-gauge train doubled and twisted in its climb up the
range overlooking Nairobi and the Athi Plains. Fields of corn grew so
tall as partially to conceal villages of round, grass-thatched huts with
conical roofs; we looked down into deep ravines where grew the
broad-leaved bananas; the steep hillsides had all been carefully
cultivated. Savages leaning on spears watched us puff heavily by.
Women, richly ornamented with copper wire or beads, toiled along bent
under loads carried by means of a band across the top of the head.[16]
Naked children rushed out to wave at us. We were steaming quite
comfortably through Africa as it had been for thousands of years before