THE ISLAND OF MOMBASA 



33 



days until we should be up against the "real thing." 

 I sometimes wondered how I should act with a hos- 

 tile lion in front of me whether I would become 

 panic-stricken or whether my nerve would hold 

 true. There is lots of food for reverie when one is 

 going against big game for the first time. 



We landed at Mombasa September sixteenth, 

 seventeen days out from Naples. 



Chalking the Pig's Eye 



Mombasa is a little island about two by three 

 miles in extent. It is riotous with brilliant vegeta- 

 tion, and, as seen after a long sea voyage through 

 the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, it looks heavenly 

 except for the heat. Hundreds of great baobab 

 trees with huge, bottle-like trunks and hundreds of 

 broad spreading mango trees give an effect of 

 tropical luxuriance that is hardly to be excelled in 

 beauty anywhere in the East. Large ships that stop 

 at the island usually wind their course through a 



