MOMBASA ISLAND 



55 



British East Africa Company, with Mombasa as its head- 

 quarters ; and though the Arab LewaH is still nominally 

 Governor, and the blood -red flag of the Sultan of Zanzibar 

 still waves over the fort, the Company's Administrator became 

 the real ruler of the town.^ 



The Administrator's residence is on the south side of the 

 island, on a cliff commanding a fine view over the broad 

 harbour of Kilindini and up the long estuary of Port Reitz to 

 the distant summits of the mountains of Shimba. This fine 

 sheet of water was named after J. J. Reitz, who surveyed it for 

 the Admiralty in 1824, and died at the completion of his task. 

 The house is connected with the town by a narrow gauge 

 railway, along which garrys are pushed by native runners. Mr. 

 Piggott kindly invited me to stay with him, and to his home 

 I followed him after I had settled up affairs with the men. 



The ride across the island was delightful ; the narrow line 

 " switchbacked " up and down hill through park-like scenery, of 

 which the beauty was the more fascinating by contrast with 

 that of the monotonous scrub-covered plains I had previously 

 seen. We dashed through groves of lofty cocoa-nut palms, 

 past rugged baobabs and massive shady mangoes, between 

 which were glades radiant with meadow -flowers and orchids 

 and festooned by creepers and vines of the india-rubber plant 

 {LandolpJiia). Rushing down hill in a sharp curve, we startled 

 a pack of monkeys who were playing on the line : they fled 

 barking to the woods as the garry rattled past them. Mr. 

 Piggott met me in his garden, and took me for a ramble along 

 the shore to examine some beds of coral limestone, so crowded 

 with garnets and fragments of emerald and beryl, as to resemble 

 an ancient metamorphic rock or " calciphyr," rather than a 

 recent coral rock. 



It did not need any contrast with camp life on the Tana 

 to make my stay in Mombasa enjoyable. The scenery of 

 the island is most fair, the air from the ocean is fresh and 

 bracing, and the members of the European colony were most 



1 The 'efforts of the Company were not fortunate in Africa, and therefore were 

 not appreciated in England, and in 1895 the country became a British Protectorate. 

 Had the Company cared less for the natives and more for itself, had it been more selfish 

 and less patriotic, had it endeavoured rather to secure dividends for its shareholders than 

 the freedom of the slaves in its dominions, its efforts would probably have been estimated 

 with approximate justice, and the judgment passed upon it by public opinion might have 

 been approximately fair. 



