e heart of an
African wilderness, belonging to our own countryman, Mr. W. N.
McMillan. If most people are as I was before I saw the place, they have
considerable curiosity and no knowledge of what it is and how it looks.

We came to Juja at the end of a wide circle that had lasted three
months, and was now bringing us back again toward our starting point.
For five days we had been camped on top a high bluff at the junction of
two rivers. When we moved we dropped down the bluff, crossed one river,
and, after some searching, found our way up the other bluff. There we
were on a vast plain bounded by mountains thirty miles away. A large
white and unexpected sign told us we were on Juja Farm, and warned us
that we should be careful of our fires in the long grass.

For an hour we plodded slowly along. Herds of zebra and hartebeeste drew
aside before us, dark heavy wildebeeste-the gnu-stood in groups at a
safe distance their heads low, looking exactly like our vanished bison;
ghostlike bands of Thompson's gazelles glided away with their smooth
regular motion. On the vast and treeless plains single small objects
standing above the general uniformity took an exaggerated value; so
that, before it emerged from the swirling heat mirage, a solitary tree
might easily be mistaken for a group of buildings or a grove. Finally,
however, we raised above the horizon a dark straight clump of trees. It
danced in the mirage, and blurred and changed form, but it persisted.
A strange patch of white kept appearing and disappearing again. This
resolved itself into the side of a building. A spider-legged water tower
appeared above the trees.

Gradually we drew up on these. A bit later we swung to the right around
a close wire fence ten feet high, passed through a gate, and rode down
a long slanting avenue of young trees. Between the trees were century
plants and flowers, and a clipped border ran before them. The avenue
ended before a low white bungalow, with shady verandas all about it, and
vines. A formal flower garden lay immediately about it, and a very tall
flag pole had been planted in front. A hundred feet away the garden
dropped off steep to one of the deep river canyons.

Two white-robed Somalis appeared on the veranda to inform us that
McMillan was off on safari. Our own boys approaching at this moment, we
thereupon led them past the house, down another long avenue of trees and
flowers, out into an open space with many buildings at its