AFRICAN CAMP FIRES 



Dazzling sun shone on the white road, the white 

 buildings visible up and down the street, the white 

 walls enclosing their gardens, and the greenery and 

 colours of the trees within them. For from what 

 we could see from our window we immediately 

 voted tropical vegetation quite up to advertisement. 

 Whole trees of gaudy red or yellow or bright orange 

 blossoms, flowering vines, flowering shrubs, peered 

 over the walls or through the fences; and behind 

 them rose great mangoes or the slenderer shafts of 

 bananas and coconut palms. 



Up and down wandered groups of various sorts 

 of natives. A month later we would have been able 

 to identify their different tribes and to know more 

 about them; but now we wondered at them as strange 

 and picturesque peoples. They impressed us in gen- 

 eral as being a fine lot of men, for they were of good 

 physique, carried themselves well, and looked about 

 them with a certain dignity and independence, a 

 fine, free pride of carriage and of step. This fact 

 alone differentiated them from our own negroes; 

 but, further, their features were in general much 

 finer, and their skins of a clear mahogony beautiful 

 in its satiny texture. Most and these were the 

 blackest wore long white robes and fine openwork 

 skullcaps. They were the local race, the Swahili, 

 had we but known, it; the original "Zanzibari" who 



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