xviii THE LAND OF THE LION 



That reason is: Africa fascinates me as she ever has those 

 who visit her. The old Arab proverb proved true at least 

 in my case: "He that hath drunk of Africa's fountains 

 will drink again." 



The first view of southeastern Africa is unattractive in 

 the extreme. As I made my second visit to the coast this 

 was again impressed on me. Three years before our 

 " Messagerie " steamer had taken a course close in shore 

 and day after day one gazed on those mountainous sun 

 scorched sand dunes, where no blade of grass grew, that 

 seemed to hiss and sizzle in the heat as the blue waves 

 washed them. Now and then a faint curl of smoke marked 

 where some Somali camel herder or fisherman had pitched 

 his black tent, that through the glass might be seen clinging 

 like a black snail to the yellow ground. One of the English 

 civil servants on board, who had been stationed for some 

 time on the Juba River, which divides British East Africa 

 from Italian Somaliland, told me that a boat's party who 

 landed on these Somali sandbanks would have their throats 

 cut in half an hour. Sincerely he pitied the Italians for 

 having such a dangerous and unprofitable colony, and 

 thanked God that the Juba marked the British line. 



On the second trip the barren unfriendliness of the Somali 

 coast was illustrated afresh. Our German steamer called 

 at Naples, and then took aboard sixteen Italian officers. 

 The company undertook to land this party at Mogadicio, 

 which was somewhat out of the usual course, and thus we 

 came to make a call at a little port seldom visited. 



The officers were charming gentlemen, as Italian officers 

 usually are. Picked men, too, for their business was no 

 sinecure. The Somali under (or supposed to be under) 

 Italian rule had, as they love to do, made trouble, and had 

 cut up a large party of askaris,* killing some two hundred 



*NatiTc soldier. The askari on Sefari life, is above a porter, and under the head man. He 

 carries no load (ordinarily) but is armed, carries your messages, and guards camp at night. 



