CHAPTER VII 

 TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST TO THE SOTIK 



ON June 5th 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 cour- 

 teously received by the fathers, had gone over their planta- 

 tions 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 differ- 

 ent 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. Hurl- 

 burt, 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 car- 

 ried on in a spirit which combines to a marked degree broad 

 sanity and common sense with disinterested fervor. Of 

 course, such work, under the conditions which necessarily 

 obtain in East Africa, can only show gradual progress; but 

 I am sure that missionary work of the Kijabe kind will be 

 an indispensable factor in the slow uplifting of the natives. 



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