THE ISLAND OF MOMBASA 35 



Company do the rest. This firm is ubiquitous in 

 Mombasa and Zanzibar. They attend to everything 

 for you, and relieve you from much worry, vexation 

 and rupees. They pay your customs duties, get your 

 mountains of stuff on the train for Nairobi, and all 

 you have to do is to pay them a commission and look 

 pleasant. The customs duty is ten per cent, on 

 everything you have, and the commission is five per 

 cent. But in a hot climate, where one is apt to feel 

 lazy, the price is cheap. 



Thanks to the governor, our party of four was 

 invited to go to Nairobi on his special train. It 

 left Mombasa on the morning of the nineteenth of 

 September, and at once began to climb toward the 

 plateau on which Nairobi is situated, three hundred 

 and twenty-seven miles away. We had dreaded the 

 railway ride through the lowlands along the coast, 

 for that district has a bad reputation for fever and 

 all such ills. But again we were pleasantly disap- 

 pointed. The country was beautiful and interest- 

 ing, and at four o'clock in the afternoon we arrived 

 at Voi, a spot that is synonymous with human ail- 

 ments. It is one of the famous ill health resorts of 

 Africa, but on this occasion it was on its good be- 

 havior. We stopped four hours, inspected every- 

 thing in sight, and at eight o'clock the special began 

 to climb toward the plateau of East Africa. At 

 nine o'clock we stopped at Tsavo, a place made 

 famous by the two man-eating lions whose terrible 

 depredations have been so vividly described by 

 Colonel Patterson in his book, The Man Eaters of 



