left the jungle finally when we turned on a long angle away from
Kenia. At first the open country of the foothills was closely cultivated
with fields of rape and maize. We saw some of the people breaking new
soil by means of long pointed sticks. The plowmen quite simply inserted
the pointed end in the ground and pried. It was very slow hard work. In
other fields the grain stood high and good. From among the stalks, as
from a miniature jungle, the little naked totos stared out, and the
good-natured women smiled at us. The magnificent peak of Kenia had now
shaken itself free of the forests. On its snow the sunrises and sunsets
kindled their fires. The flames of grass fires, too, could plainly be
made out, incredible distances away, and at daytime, through the reek,
were fascinating suggestions of distant rivers, plains, jungles, and
hills. You see, we were still practically on the wide slope of Kenia's
base, though the peak was many days away, and so could look out over
wide country.

The last half day of this we wandered literally in a rape field. The
stalks were quite above our heads, and we could see but a few yards in
any direction. In addition the track had become a footpath not over two
feet wide. We could occasionally look back to catch glimpses of a pack
or so bobbing along on a porter's head. From our own path hundreds of
other paths branched; we were continually taking the wrong fork and
moving back to set the safari right before it could do likewise. This we
did by drawing a deep double line in the earth across the wrong trail.
Then we hustled on ahead to pioneer the way a little farther; our
difficulties were further complicated by the fact that we had sent our
horses back to Nairobi for fear of the tsetse fly, so we could not see
out above the corn. All we knew was that we ought to go down hill.

At the ends of some of our false trails we came upon fascinating little
settlements: groups of houses inside brush enclosures, with low wooden
gateways beneath which we had to stoop to enter. Within were groups of
beehive houses with small naked children and perhaps an old woman or old
man seated cross-legged under a sort of veranda. From them we obtained
new-and confusing-directions.

After three o'clock we came finally out on the edge of a cliff fifty or
sixty feet high, below which lay uncultivated bottom lands like a great
meadow and a little meandering stream. We descended the cliff, and
camped by the meanderi