CHAPTER III. 



From Aden to Mombasa — Through the Tropics and Across 



The Equator. 



FROM Aden to Mombasa it is a seven days voyage to the South. 

 Rounding Cape Guardaful is a ticklish business-tides and 

 winds and unHghted shores menacing the hundreds of ships that 

 annually feel their route around this easternmost point of Africa. 

 As we leave it behind we cannot fail to note the massive lion's head 

 which the promontory forms, the best natural effigy I know,-- 

 better even than the profile in the White Mountains. 



The ship's company will now settle down to sports and or- 

 ganized amusements. The captain will give a ball. There will be 

 a gymkhana. Ceremonies appropriate to crossing the equator will 

 take place. The boatswain, disguised as Neptune, will climb up the 

 ship's side with messages and warnings for every one. 



Those who have never before crossed the equator will be bap- 

 tized in a large tank on the forward deck. And night and day will 

 follow each other swiftly as the ship steams southward over the 

 softly heaving Indian Ocean, where *'the flying fishes play and the 

 sun comes up like thunder out of China 'cross the bay." The Orient 

 is so perfectly epitomized in Kipling's famous ballad that one must 

 be forgiven for quoting it. Somaliland lies to the west, almost al- 

 ways visible, a low, salmon pink shore line. 



There are the palms of Mombasa straight ahead — yes, quite 

 distinct they are, off the port bow, for we are heading now direct 

 toward the land. There, on the starboard bow, is the palm grove of 

 Freretown. In the immediate foreground is the old Portuguese 

 fort, for the Portuguese were the first of European nations to set 

 foot on this coral strand. Into this harbor Vasco da Gama sailed in 

 1480, in his high-pooped galleon. He nearly came to grief on that 

 sand bar to the south, where the breakers of the Indian Ocean to-day 

 gnash their cruel teeth. 



