The rains have stopped, and I've got all the planting done. I'm trying some radish and rhubarb this season; also carrots, which Mr. Gillespie told me are good for the cattle. By the way, that bull we called Moses because he's fierce, is off his feed; I don't know what's wrong with him, and you might send me Barton's book on common ailments. I don't suppose you'll find a copy in Geneva, or wherever you are now, but if you're not too busy to send a card in London, I dare say I'll get it when Moses is dead.
"That'll touch him up, Charley; he'll think Moses would be all right if he were here."
I bought a few fat-tailed sheep from old Sobersides (the chief of the neighbouring village) the other day. He got them, he says, from a party of Rendili who were driven south of the Waso Nyiro by the drought in their own country. I don't suppose it's true, for Coja tells me the Rendili live a big long way beyond the mountain, and we've seen nothing of them.
Sobersides tells us, too, that a gang of Swahilis have established themselves somewhere north of Kenya, and are raiding the surrounding tribes. As they've got guns, I bet they're that sweep Juma and his crew. That's all we've heard of them since we licked them.
Ferrier is still here; says he's in loco parentis, and won't leave me till you return to your duties. I wonder if you tell the widow's children that you're in loco parentis?
The lions have been quiet lately, since Said Mohammed saved my life; but as the mistris had next to nothing to do and were getting too fat, I have set them to build a stronger boma, of stout poles fastened together with transverse logs. That ought to keep the beasts out; at any rate it will give the place more the look of a respectable stockyard.
I wish you'd ship a few merinos for cross-breeding. Our half-breeds aren't much good for wool. The May lambs were born with long coarse hair, though they grew a poor sort of wool at three months. Wasama doesn't like the woolled sheep; he says they're not like the sheep of his country, and persists in believing that the first woolled beasts were the offspring of lions and hyenas. What ignorance! as old Martha used to say.