GLIMPSES OF EAST AFRICA AND ZANZIBAR 



horse racing on two days, and cricket and foot- 

 ball matches between Mombasa and Nairobi on the 

 other days, with dances and dinner parties in the 

 evenings. Then it is the ladies come out in their 

 new frocks and prettiest hats ; the Nairobi ladies 

 not wishing to be outdone by the Mombasa ladies. 

 I have often heard it mentioned that, taking into 

 consideration the small number of ladies, no place 

 could boast of such a large percentage of pretty 

 women, more than half being well above the aver- 

 age in good looks. 



Men bring in their wives from the surrounding 

 country, and all make merry ; in fact one lives in a 

 social whirl, and it is quite with relief that one sinks 

 again into the quiet humdrum life, when the 

 greatest interests lie in the garden or the chicken 

 run. 



During the last year we were in Nairobi, another 

 race meeting was tried in October, but only for one 

 day ; it was not much of a success, the racing being 

 poor. Every Saturday two of us ladies gave tea to 

 the cricket teams which played on our hill ; it made 

 a nice meeting-place, and any of our friends were 

 welcome. Distances from house to house are so 

 great in Nairobi that weeks might otherwise go by 

 without some lady seeing the others. 



At six o'clock there was a general movement to 

 the club, where the men play bridge or billiards, 

 and the ladies meet in the reading-room to look at 



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