lo SAFARI 



caught a bad cold at the work ; and the night before 

 we sailed I topped my misery off by getting ptomaine 

 poisoning from eating mussels in a London res- 

 taurant. 



We left London in low spirits. The fog and our 

 fatigue combined to depress us. As the Mantola 

 had no heat I was glad that I had left out enough of 

 my own blankets. Even when some days later we 

 reached Port Sudan which I had always considered 

 the hottest city on earth, we still wore our overcoats. 



We dropped anchor at Aden for a few hours to take 

 and deliver mail. At least half the native population 

 came out with curios to sell. 

 ^y^On January 26, a midsummer's morning to be 

 exact, we awoke in our berths to find ourselves no 

 longer swaying with the midocean movements of the 

 ship but lying almost stockstill. We glanced out of 

 the porthole to find a harbor shimmering under 

 waves of heat; big Arab dhows, high -pooped, open- 

 waist ed, vainly stretching their triangular brown 

 sails for a capful of wind; a flotilla of row-boats all 

 around us, their passengers halloaing to friends on 

 our rail and eyeing the yellow quarantine flag, hoping 

 that it would soon run down and so allow them on 

 board. 



This was Kilindini, the port of Mombasa whose 

 white fort and government buildings and stores rose 

 out of the heat waves, a mile to the west, on the other 



