AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



able danger and hardship; they established trading stations 

 for gold and ivory and slaves; they turned these trading 

 stations into little cities and sultanates, half Arab, half negro. 

 Mombasa was among them. In her time of brief splendor 



Portugal seized the 

 city; the Arabs won 

 it back; and now Eng- 

 land holds it. It lies just 

 south of the equator, 

 and when we saw it the 

 brilliant green of the 

 tropic foliage showed 

 the town at its best. 



We were welcomed 

 to Government House 

 in most cordial fash- 

 ion by the acting Gov- 

 ernor, Lieutenant- 

 Governor Jackson, who 

 is not only a trained 

 public official of long 

 experience but a first- 

 class field naturalist 

 and a renowned big- 

 game hunter; indeed I 

 could not too warmly 

 express my apprecia- 

 tion of the hearty and 

 generous courtesy with 

 which we were received 

 and treated alike by the official and the unofficial world 

 throughout East Africa. We landed in the kind of torren- 

 tial downpour that only comes in the tropics; it reminded 

 me of Panama at certain moments in the rainy season. 

 That night we were given a dinner by the Mombasa Club; 

 and it was interesting to meet the merchants and planters 

 of the town and the neighborhood as well as the officials. 



F. C. Selous 



From a photograph by IV. N. McMillan 



