4 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
Mombasa had always a great attraction for me. A sleepy, 
old-world place, with its narrow streets and listless, picturesque 
inhabitants, it was suggestive of primitive times. If, one 
thought, the very port is so remote and untouched by modern 
progressive influences, what mysteries enticing to the imagina¬ 
tion may not the interior contain ? This, surely, was the 
very country I had yearned for. The island had, moreover, 
Portion of the Old Fort at Mombasa. 
(From a Photograph by Major Eric Smith.) 
beauties of its own, though these it is not my province to 
describe, such as a picturesque and interesting old fort, a fine 
harbour, and dreamy shady mango groves run wild producing 
luscious fruit nearly all the year round. I always enjoyed 
the time I was detained there. The prospect over the still 
water in the cool of early twilight or by moonlight was 
particularly soothing, with the quaint dhows at anchor and 
fishing canoes paddling in and out or gliding before the soft 
