INTO THE BLUE ii 



side of the island. To some these sights of British 

 East Africa would have been strange. But we were 

 as glad to see them as any homeward bound traveller 

 when first the Statue of Liberty looms up over him out 

 of the Upper Bay. Some 330 miles by queer wood- 

 bimiing trains to the Northwest and we should be 

 at Nairobi. And five hundred miles more due north 

 would bring us to Lake Paradise, that green spot in a 

 vast wilderness which now we called home. 



If in the drowsiness induced by the heat and nine 

 hotirs of slumber on Equatorial seas we had any 

 doubt that we were nearing home, to reassure us 

 there on a great flat-bottomed barge was Phishie, our 

 old cook, come clear down from the Northern 

 Frontier, with Mohammed, our watchman. Phishie 

 was bravely rigged out in a new suit of khaki, in 

 honor of the occasion; Mohammed still wore his 

 kanza or native mother hubbard. At sight of us, 

 both their happy faces shone like black melons sud- 

 denly split open to show rows of glistening white 

 seeds. 



It took us but a few seconds to dress, a minute to 

 swallow coffee and be examined. Then the yellow 

 flag ran down and I was in the waist anxiously watch- 

 ing the cranes lifting our freight down on the great 

 barge which I had engaged by cable. 



Our luggage once on board the barge, we made for 

 the wharf, docked, and took a Ford for Mombasa. 



