Lake Naivasha seemed scarcely large enough to satisfy our inordinate thirst as we pulled up; we were not a bit polite when tea was generously doled out to us by the Europeans stationed there, for none of us refused a fourth and fifth cup, even when we saw the supply was running short. I got very behindhand in my journal while on the road. Never had I been successful in keeping one for longer than a week; on the seventh day it had become so intolerably dull that Dryasdust must even have yawned. Of course, Africa supplies you with plenty of material, but the methodical mind and will power are somehow wanting. Let me tell you why. At 4.0 a.m. daily one wakes up with a start, for as the sun does not rise till 6.0, night still seems to rest heavily on the land and on one’s eyelids. But the caravan leader is beating a drum, accompanying it with a shrill falsetto call to rise; and if one dares to stay rubbing the sleep out of the eyes, the porters are fumbling away at the tent ropes, and before there is time to complete one’s toilette, the whole tent flops down like a closed umbrella. A truly undignified exit is made by a dishevelled figure, and one turns up while breakfast is being served round the camp fire on tin crockery. In the dusk we push off; a real expert rider you must be to dodge in and out of the porters who are already filing along on the narrow path, and have a happy knack of swinging round at the sound of the bicycle bell just as you pass—the tent-pole carrier was a veritable man-trap, and more than once pitched machine and rider into the ditch. I am sure I shall never complain again of English or even Scotch roads; the ridges we have ridden over (often ending in a swamp) have helped to strengthen one’s nerves and powers of balance. We generally reach camp before our porters, and then seek out some shelter till our tents arrive. It is a quaint sight to watch the long line of the caravan coming in; the men become very excited at sight of the halting place, and as the first man who carries a drum beats it with all his might, swinging a zebra tail round and round his head, the men all break into song and a slow dance, which gradually increases in volume and speed until the 65lb. box on the head is quite forgotten, the body springs about in mid-air, and finally throws itself down with a shout of ecstasy and an eloquent outburst of self-praise and congratulation. [Illustration: A GROUP OF MASAIS. _Photo by D. V. F. Figueira, Mombasa._] When tents have been pitched and bodily restoratives have been applied in the form of cool baths, a good meal and a sleep, the only possible hour for journalling has come. But who could resist the desire to peep outside the tent door, and then into the new and fascinating features of folk, animals, birds, and country that surround the colony of tents? So my pen remained idle for many days on the road, and as we were constantly going forward, it was not easy to go back and pick up broken threads.