MOMBASA 



lights ahead, then to pass dimly seen garden walls 

 with trees whose brilliant flowers the lantern re- 

 vealed fitfully. At last we made out white stucco 

 houses; and shortly drew up with a flourish before 

 the hotel itself. 



This was a two-story stucco affair, with deep 

 verandas sunken in at each story. It fronted a 

 wide white street facing a public garden; and this, 

 we subsequently discovered, was about the only 

 clear and open space in all the narrow town. Ante- 

 lope horns were everywhere hung on the walls; and 

 teakwood easy chairs with rests on which com- 

 fortably to elevate your feet above your head stood 

 all about. We entered a bare brick-floored dining- 

 room, and partook of tropical fruits quite new to us 

 — papayas, mangoes, custard apples, pawpaws, and 

 the small red eating bananas too delicate for export. 

 Overhead the punkahs swung back and forth in lazy 

 hypnotic rhythm. We could see the two blacks at 

 the ends of the punkah cords outside on the ve- 

 randa, their bodies swaying lithely in alternation as 

 they threw their weight against the light ropes. 

 Other blacks, in the long white robes and exquisitely 

 worked white skullcaps of the Swahili, glided noise- 

 lessly on bare feet, serving. 



After dinner we sat out until midnight in the 

 teakwood chairs of the upper gallery, staring through 



63 



