12 SAFARI 



There were two distinct streams of travel for the 

 town, one made up of jitneys, the other of rickshas. 

 Like the currents of different ages, they ran on side 

 by side. 



Mombasa is something of a metropolis, numbering 

 about ten thousand souls, European white, Arab 

 cafe au lait, swarthy half-caste, muddy-colored 

 mongrel, and ink black. Once it resoimded day and 

 night to the whimpering of mothers torn from their 

 children and the clanking of slave chains, for it was 

 the great slave port of the Coast. Still can one see 

 marks of conflict in the walls of its old white fort; 

 and even now they often dig up skulls and rusted links 

 buried in the sands. 



But quaint as Mombasa is, we had no mind to 

 linger there. After a good shore dinner and a night's 

 sleep at a very modem hotel we left by train for 

 Nairobi, to the northwest. The compartments of 

 the train opened, English and Continental fashion, 

 on the side. But what the original color of the 

 furnishings were I could scarcely make out, for seats, 

 floor, racks, were a dusty orange hue from the red 

 clay country through which we passed. Even the 

 usually inky faces of the porters had a lacquer of 

 vermilion. 



After a few hours we came out on the veldt, a 

 scrubby plain, but still bearing signs of civilization at 

 the stations which boasted restaurants not unlike 



