McMillan Wanted In Addition To Leave Us His
Servants; But To This We Would Not Agree.
Memba Sasa and Mahomet
were, of course, members of our permanent staff.
In addition to
them we picked up another house boy, named Leyeye. He was a
Masai. These proud and aristocratic savages rarely condescend to
take service of any sort except as herders; but when they do they
prove to be unusually efficient and intelligent. We had also a
Somali cook, and six ordinary bearers to do general labour. This
small safari we started off afoot for Juja. The whole lot cost us
about what we would pay one Chinaman on the Pacific Coast.
Next day we ourselves drove out in the mule buckboard. The rains
were on, and the road was very muddy. After the vital tropical
fashion the grass was springing tall in the natural meadows and
on the plains and the brief-lived white lilies and an abundance
of ground flowers washed the slopes with colour. Beneath the
grass covering, the entire surface of the ground was an inch or
so deep in water. This was always most surprising, for,
apparently, the whole country should have been high and dry.
Certainly its level was that of a plateau rather than a bottom
land; so that one seemed always to be travelling at an elevation.
Nevertheless walking or riding we were continually splashing, and
the only dry going outside the occasional rare "islands" of the
slight undulations we found near the very edge of the bluffs
above the rivers.
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