the edge of the Athi Plains, a broad sweep of
sun-bleached grass veldt many miles in extent. From almost any part of
the town one may look out on plains where great herds of wild game are
constantly in sight. In an hour's leisurely walk from the station a man
with a gun can get hartebeest, zebra, Grant's gazelle, Thompson's
gazelle, impalla, and probably wildebeest. One can not possibly count
the number of animals that feed contentedly within sight of the town of
Nairobi, and it is difficult to think that one is not looking out upon a
collection of domesticated game. Sometimes, as happened two nights
before we reached Nairobi, a lion will chase a herd of zebra and the
latter in fright will tear through the town, destroying gardens and
fences and flowers in a mad stampede. We met one man who goes out ten
minutes from town every other day and kills a kongoni (hartebeest) as
food for his dogs. If you were disposed to do so you could kill dozens
every day with little effort and almost no diminution of the visible
supply.

Nairobi is new and unattractive. There is one long main thoroughfare,
quite wide and fringed with trees, along which at wide intervals are the
substantial looking stone building of the Bank of India, the business
houses, the hotels, and numbers of cheap corrugated iron, one-story
shacks used for government purposes. A native barracks with low iron
houses and some more little iron houses used for medical experiments and
still some more for use as native hospitals are encountered as one takes
the half-mile ride from the station to the hotel. A big square filled
with large trees marks the park, and a number of rather pretentious
one-story buildings display signs that tell you where you may buy almost
anything, from a suit of clothes to a magazine rifle.

[Drawing: _The Main Street Is a Busy Place_]

Goanese, East Indian, and European shops are scattered at intervals
along this one long, wide street. Rickshaws, pedestrians, bullock carts,
horsemen, and heavily burdened porters are passing constantly back and
forth, almost always in the middle of the street. Bicycles, one or two
motorcycles, and a couple of automobiles are occasionally to be seen.
The aspect of the town suggests the activity of a new frontier place
where everybody is busy. At one end the long street loses itself in the
broad Athi Plains, at the other it climbs up over some low hills and
enters the residence district on higher ground. Here th