12 UNDER THE AFRICAN SUN 



What sinister scenes these old walls must have witnessed, when 

 slavery and tyranny were rampant, when it required six months 

 to circumnavigate Africa via Cape of Good Hope to Lisbon, when 

 the Portuguese governor held the life, honour, and property of 

 residents at his mercy, and ruled with more absolute sway than 

 the Autocrat of all the Russias ! Looking at crumbling portions 

 of the old defences and at the rusting dismantled cannons 

 strewn about, some lapped by the restless tides, some resting 

 in the dismal casemates, Scott's noble lines in "Marmion" are 

 recalled — 



" The ire of a wrathful king 

 Comes riding on destruction's wing ! " 



The littleness of human greatness is emphasised ! The petty 

 tyrant, raised by the inscrutable decree of Providence to rule a 

 province in these distan^ regions, forgets that he is as insig- 

 nificant as a bubble of sprav on the mighty crest of storm- 

 tossed ocean waves; his name and word supreme to-day, 

 to-morrow are forgotten, as the ceaseless ages roll along with 

 their thousand years counting but as a day in the eternal 

 history of time ! 



The narrow winding streets of the older portion of Mombasa 

 town are not very inviting. With regard to the newer portion, 

 where the Wali (the Arab governor or magistrate of the town) 

 is erecting rows of native buildings to accommodate the rapidly- 

 increasing native population, a wide straight road is left open for 

 traffic, and leads to cocoa-nut plantations and copses of magni- 

 ficent old mango-trees. 



Swahili ladies delight in having the tiny amount of wool 

 on their heads elaborately plaited by a professional hair- 

 dresser. The height of fashion wath them is to have the wool 

 parted in longitudinal streaks from the forehead to the occiput, 

 so as to give the skull the resemblance to a ribbed melon. 

 Instead of being satisfied with one hole through the lobe of 

 the ear, they punch a series of holes, arranged in a semicircle 

 along the whole of the outer rim of the ear. Ear-rings in 

 the shape of small buttons are then inserted, and a similar 

 button worn as a nose-ring in the cartilage of the right or left 

 nostril completes the head-toilet. As regards dress, the louder 

 the pattern and the more glaring the colours of the cotton cloth 

 which forms her one garment, the more is the Swahili pleased. 



