Page:The empire and the century.djvu/915

 probably no place in the world which can show an even approximately similar display of large game, or offer better shooting in the districts where shooting is allowed.

Nairobi, about 5,500 feet high, and the second capital of the Protectorate, is reached about noon. It is a European settlement which has sprung up in the last five years, and is growing so rapidly that I do not venture to state what its present population may be. But it probably retains the appearance which it had about a year ago of a West American mining town formed of tin shanties, though not devoid of comfortable bungalows. It is said that hotels and a bank are being constructed, which will certainly add to the comfort and possibly to the appearance of the town. Nairobi, though not beautiful in itself, is the connecting link between two dissimilar regions, each very beautiful in its own way. Before it stretch the spacious Athi plains; immediately behind it rise in gentle, wooded slopes the hills of Kikuyu. This distinct extends from Mount Ngongo on the south of Nairobi to Mount Kenya, a snow-capped mountain rivalling Kilima Njaro, in the north, and is perhaps the most favoured district of East Africa, combining, as it does, agricultural with pastoral land, plentiful water, a sufficient supply of native labour, but also a sufficiency of unoccupied land which can be taken up by Europeans. It is difficult to make those who have not seen the country believe that it recalls an English summer landscape with its green lanes and sunny parks, and one often feels that it would not be out of keeping to see some village spire rising above the trees, which are so curiously European in appearance.

In crossing Kikuyu the train reaches an altitude of about 7,500 feet, and then suddenly descends into the Rift Valley. Probably there is no place in the world where a railway effects such a sudden and thorough transformation of scenery without the aid of a tunnel. The line makes a great curve, and almost in the space of a minute passes from the fertile, comfortable fields of