CHAPTER VII 



TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST TO THE SOTIK 



On June 5 we started south from Kijabe to trek 

 through " the thirst," through the waterless country 

 which lies across the way to the Sotik. 



The preceding Sunday at Nairobi I had visited 

 the excellent French Catholic Mission, had been most 

 courteously received by the fathers, had gone over their 

 plantations and the school in which they taught the 

 children of the settlers (much to my surprise, among 

 them were three Parsee children, who were evidently 

 put on a totally different plane from the other Indians, 

 even the Goanese), and had been keenly interested in 

 their account of their work and of the obstacles with 

 which they met. 



At Kijabe I spent several exceedingly interesting- 

 hours at the American Industrial Mission. Its head, 

 Mr. Hurlburt, had called on me in Washington at the 

 White House in the preceding October, and I had then 

 made up my mind that if the chance occurred I must 

 certainly visit his mission. It is an interdenominational 

 mission, and is carried on in a spirit which combines to 

 a marked degree broad sanity and common sense with 

 disinterested fervour. Of course, such work, under the 

 conditions which necessarily obtain in East Africa, can 

 only show gradual progress ; but I am sure that mis- 



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