198 
A COLONY IN THE MAKING 
CHAP. 
problem of which class to travel. The first class 
carriages are very nice, clean, and empty. For the 
most part they are long and spacious with seats 
lengthways, sideways to the engine, and eminently 
suitable for slumber. But, alas! the price of the 
ticket is most exorbitant. The second class is an 
almost precisely similar compartment of a more 
advanced age, and into it one would at once spring 
were it not that the next similar compartment is 
crowded with about six Indians of the usual or baser 
sort, and that an inspection reveals to our olfactory 
senses that our compartment has recently had 
occupants of the same kind. I would like to urge 
on the management that certain compartments, first 
and second class, be reserved for Indians only. It 
is, I believe, recognised that the effluvia of hot 
Europeans is most offensive to the Asiatic, and in 
his interest I urge that it is most unfair that he should 
be subjected to them ! 
The difficulty of selection solved either by damning 
the expense or by squaring the guard (a more difficult 
matter, alas ! than at home and only to be attained 
by an appeal to his patriotism or better feelings), 
we instruct our boys to arrange rugs and pillows 
to our liking and settle down. The train starts slap 
up to time at about 11 a.m. and in a few minutes 
we are at the sea-port of Kilindini, where rows of 
trucks loaded with produce going out, or of machinery 
and implements coming in, testify to the agricultural 
activity of the Colony. Leaving Kilindini, we cross 
over a fine long bridge separating the island of 
Mombasa from the mainland. The first twenty miles 
or so lie through tropical country with plantations 
of rubber trees and cocoa-nuts on either side. At 
