I 
FIRST EXPEDITION FROM MOMBASA 
3 
any other way led me to take service under the East Africa 
Company for a time, that I might learn something of the 
country and gain a knowledge of the management of a 
caravan and a smattering of the Swahili language. Of a 
little more than a year which I spent thus—first cutting a 
bush road up the Sabaki River and afterwards joining in an 
expedition to the interior—it is not my intention to write 
now, though there may be something worth telling about the 
latter some day. I had also the opportunity of finding out 
during that trip that elephants were not more difficult to kill 
than other game, and resolved to devote myself to their pur¬ 
suit Then the offer of an appointment in Zululand took 
me south again, but only to find after a year that the 
monotony of the life was unsuited to me. So I reverted to 
my original plan. 
Entrance to Mombasa Harbour. 
(From a Photograph by Major Eric Smith.) 
