CHAPTER VIII 
SAFARI HUNTERS 
black people, a few Hindus, and fewer white men. 
Before my departure for the Athi Plains, where 
I planned to begin my collections, I wished to find 
a place in Nairobi where I might store material as 
I sent it in from time to time from the field. Around 
and around I wandered without finding any one who 
was able to offer a helpful suggestion. Then one day, 
as I was passing the oper. door of an unpromising 
galvanized iron building, } ‘\eard the encouraging 
clatter of a typewriter and lost no time in investigat- 
ing. At the rear of a bare room about thirty feet 
wide and forty feet long was a door on the other side 
of which someone was plying the typewriter furiously. 
Finally there came forth from behind that closed 
door a blue-eyed, red-haired chap, apparently ex- 
traordinarily busy and much annoyed at being in- 
terrupted. However, his annoyance vanished when 
I told him what I was looking for and he suggested 
that I use a third of the front part of his building at a 
rental of five rupees—about a dollar and a half—per 
month. This arrangement was eminently satisfac- 
tory to me and we closed the bargain at once. 
148 
N 1905 Nairobi was a town of tin houses, many 
