AFRICAN CAMP FIRES 



delight. For his benefit is the wide, glittering, 

 colourful, unsanitary bazaar, with its dozens of little 

 open-air veranda shops, its "hotels" where he can 

 sit in a real chair and drink real tea, its cafes, and 

 the dark mysteries of its more doubtful amusements. 

 The bazaar is whack in the middle of town, just 

 where it ought not to be, and it is constantly being 

 quarantined, and threatened with removal. It 

 houses a large population mysteriously, for it is of 

 slight extent. Then on the borders of town are the 

 two great native villages — one belonging to the 

 Somalis; and the other hospitably accommodating 

 the swarms of caravan porters and their families. 

 For, just as in old days Mombasa and Zanzibar used 

 to be the points from which caravans into the interior 

 would set forth, now Nairobi outfits the majority 

 of expeditions. Probably ten thousand picked 

 natives of various tribes are engaged in the pro- 

 fession. Of course but a small proportion of this 

 number is ever at home at any one time; but the 

 village is a large one. Both these villages are built 

 in the native style, of plaster and thatch; have their 

 own headman government — under supervision — 

 and are kept pretty well swept out and tidy. Be- 

 side these three main gathering places are many 

 camps and '^ shambas^^* scattered everywhere; and § 



*Native farmlets, generally temporary. 



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