MALINDI 



with enormous rings in his ears. Throughout the 

 hours that followed I kept waking up as he called 

 the number of bells in some uncouth tongue, or 

 repeated the orders of the mate who was on watch. 

 A small oil lamp threw a flickering light upon his 

 bronzed face and bare chest, glistening with sweat, 

 as he kept the little vessel on her course. 



Dawn broke with rare loveliness upon a smooth 

 sea, whose unruffled surface shone like burnished 

 silver, and as the light grew it revealed on our port 

 side the low sandy shore, fringed with the deep green 

 of a belt of palm trees, in which the little town of 

 Malindi was half concealed. We anchored here for 

 an hour, but the few white houses built on the very- 

 beach, and the uninteresting character of the place 

 decided me to stay on board ; from the deck I 

 watched the Lascars unload some cargo on to the 

 dhows that had come out to meet us ; the Kikuyu 

 recruits were transhipped, and we were off again 

 towards the north before seven o'clock. All through 

 that morning and well into the afternoon, the little 

 Wiesman steamed untidily over the gentle swell, 

 leaving a broad wake of foam behind her, above 

 which wheeled innumerable gulls in search of food ; 

 occasionally I had a glimpse of the African coast, 

 low and inhospitable, but it showed indistinctly 

 through the haze that hung above the water ; a 

 school of porpoises, and now and again a shoal of 

 fish rising for a moment like silver spray above the 

 sea, lent charm and life to a scene that was otherwise 

 monotonous and wearisome. 



At three o'clock we entered the long and intricate 

 channel that leads into Lamu Bay. We passed at first 

 between coral reefs, and then threaded our way down 



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