CHAPTER XXX THE UGANDA RAILWAY TRAVELLING by railway through the wilds of East Africa! Steaming for hundreds of miles among zebras, gnus, ostriches, and giraffes! Roll¬ ing along through jungles which are the haunts of the rhinoceros and where the lion and the leopard wait for their prey! These were some of my experiences during my trip over the Uganda Railway from Mombasa to Nairobi.

Only a few years ago it took a month to cover the dis¬ tance between these two points. To-day I made it in less than twenty-four hours, and that in a comfortable car. The railroad fare, travelling first-class, was fifty-eight rupees, which at normal exchange would total about thirty dollars, and I had good meals on the way. The distance is over three hundred miles, just about half the length of the rail¬ road.

Wood-burning locomotives of the American type are largely used. The maximum scheduled speed is twentyfive miles an hour. Trains leave Mombasa daily for Nairobi and three times a week for Kisumu on Lake Vic¬ toria, which is five hundred and eighty-four miles from Mombasa.

Leaving Mombasa, our train carried us across a great steel bridge to the mainland, and we climbed through a jungle up to the plateau. We passed baobab trees, with 243