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As Machakos Road is some four thousand feet higher above the sea level than Tsavo, the difference in temperature was also very marked, and the air felt fresh and cool compared with that of the sun-baked valley in which I had spent the previous year.
About ten days after my arrival at Machakos Road I walked in this way for five or six miles ahead of the last-laid rail. It was rather unusual for me to go so far, and, as it happened, I was alone on this occasion, Mahina having been left behind in camp. About two miles away on my left, I noticed a dark-looking object and thinking it was an ostrich I started off towards it.
We saw them fairly clear of everything, then turned them over to Kongoni, while we returned to Nairobi to see after our effects. This has to do with a lion hunt on the Kapiti Plains. On the veranda at Nairobi I had some time previous met Clifford Hill, who had invited me to visit him at the ostrich farm he and his cousin were running in the mountains near Machakos.
On the way I was lucky enough to get some fine views of Kilima N'jaro, the whole mountain from base to summit standing out clearly and grandly, with the lofty peak of Kibo topping the fleecy clouds with its snowy head. At Machakos Road I found the country and the climate very different from that to which I had grown accustomed at Tsavo.
By this time railhead had reached a place called Machakos Road, some two hundred and seventy-six miles from Mombasa and within a few miles of the great Athi Plains, the latter being treeless and waterless expanses, bare of everything except grass, which the great herds of game keep closely cropped.
Not a bit disturbed by the tales this man would probably carry back home, our old fellow attached himself to us for three days! Near sundown, to make our promise good, and also to give our own men a feast, I shot two hartebeeste near camp. The evening was beautiful. The Machakos Range, miles distant across the valley, was mantled with thick, soft clouds.
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