MEETING COLONEL ROOSEVELT 125 



the whole protectorate, and the names of these are 

 duly catalogued and known to the post-office offi- 

 cials both in Mombasa and Nairobi. 



If a strange name appears on a letter or des- 

 patch, inquiries are made and the identity of the 

 stranger is quickly established. If he is a sports- 

 man, the outfitters in Nairobi will know who he is. 

 They will have equipped him with porters and the 

 other essentials of a caravan, and they will know 

 exactly in which section of the protectorate he is 

 hunting. So the letter is readdressed in care of the 

 boma, or government station, nearest to that sec- 

 tion. The letter duly arrives at the boma f and a 

 native runner is told to go out and deliver the mes- 

 sage. He starts off, and by inquiry of other natives 

 and by relying on a natural instinct that is little 

 short of marvelous he ultimately finds the object of 

 his search and delivers his message. 



If you look at a map of British East Africa you 

 will be amazed at the number of names that are 

 marked upon it. You would quite naturally think 

 that the country was rather thickly settled, where- 

 as in fact there are very few places of settlement 

 away from the single line of railroad that runs 

 from Mombasa to Victoria Nyanza. The protec- 

 torate is divided into subdistricts, each one of which 

 has a capital, or boma, as it is called. This boma 

 usually consists of a white man's residence, a little 

 post-office, one or two Indian stores w r here all the 

 necessities of a simple life may be procured, and a 

 number of native grass huts. There is usually a 



