The rest of Kijabe is composed of four other
houses, the goods-shed, an open-faced Indian booth, the
post-office, and the water-tank. Ulvate met us with a lantern,
for the station lights are dim, and we detrained in the face of
the high wind that always blows there from sunset to dawn, and
picketed the horses among the trees of the station platform.
Because a large part of the revenue of the country is derived
from the visiting hunters, a safari is accorded privileges out of
the ordinary. So, as a matter of course, we took possession of
the station and camped in the tin guest-house for the night.
The morning came clear and hot and still. The railroad at Kijabe
runs along the face of the hills, so that the land drops down
abruptly to the plains below, and you can look away for miles
over the Kedong and Rift valleys, with the two sentinel extinct
volcanoes rising black against the heat-blurred sky;
The floors of the valleys are laid with volcanic ash. But on
first appearances the land looks much the same as the regulation
veldt or certain parts of our own Western plains. It is only by
the fineness of the dust that hangs about the horses' feet, and
the peculiar quality of the thirst that dries in the throat, that
you know this is no ordinary soil.
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