Settlers and Scouts

"It's a very ticklish subject," said Mr. Halliday, "and I don't profess to understand it. I dare say those zebras yonder--look at them, John, hundreds of 'em--think it great impudence on the part of this engine to run snorting through their grounds. But the engine runs all the same."

At Tsavo the line crossed the river Athi. John looked out eagerly for a glimpse of the lions which were said to infest this region, but to his disappointment saw none. Indeed, as the train passed through mile after mile of uninteresting scrub, he began to feel that his first enthusiasm for the country was premature. But at Kibwezi the line enters another belt of forest, the trees looped together with festooning creepers, and filled with chattering monkeys and barking baboons; the undergrowth brilliant with colour, both of the flowers and of birds and butterflies innumerable. Some miles farther on, at Makindu, the forest yields to rich pasture land, the u