Our Route Lay By The Always Interesting Tsavo
River.
Along the banks everything within reach
of its moisture is delightfully fresh and green.
Palms and other trees, festooned
With brilliant
flowering creepers, flourish along its course;
all kinds of monkeys chatter and jabber in the
shade overhead as they swing themselves from
branch to branch, while birds of the most
gorgeous plumage flutter about, giving a very
tropical aspect to the scene. On the other hand,
if one is tempted to stray away from the river, be
it only for a few yards, one comes immediately
into the parched, thorny wilderness of stunted,
leafless trees. Here the sun beats down pitilessly,
and makes the nyika of the Tsavo valley almost
intolerable. The river has its source at the foot
of snow-crowned Kilima N'jaro, whence it flows
for about eighty miles in a northerly direction
until it joins the Athi River, about seven miles
below Tsavo Station. From this point the united
streams take the name of Sabaki and flow more
or less eastwards until they reach the Indian Ocean
at Malindi, some seventy miles north of Mombasa.
A narrow and tortuous Masai warpath winds
along its whole length, but although we followed
this trail our journey was nevertheless a very slow
one, owing to the overhanging branches and
creepers, from which we had constantly to be
disengaged. The march was full of interest,
however, for it was not long before we came upon
fresh tracks both of hippo and rhino.
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