THE ISLAND OF MOMBASA 
37 
gazelles, Thompson’s gazelles, impalla, giraffes, 
wildebeests, and many other antelope species can¬ 
tered off and stood to watch the train as it swept 
past them. It was a wonderful ride, perhaps the 
most novel railway ride to be found any place in 
the world. On each side of the Uganda Railroad 
there is a strip of land, narrow on the north and 
wide on the south, in which game is protected from 
the sportsman, and consequently the animals have 
learned to regard these strips as sanctuary. There 
were many tales of lions as we rode along, and the 
imagination pictured a slinking lion in every patch 
of reeds along the way. I heard one lion story that 
makes the man-eaters of Tsavo seem like vege¬ 
tarians. It was told to me by a gentleman high in 
the government service—a man of unimpeachable 
veracity. He says the story is absolutely true, but 
refused to swear to it. 
Once upon a time, so the story goes, there was a 
caravan of slaves moving through the jungles of 
Africa. The slave-drivers were cruel and they 
chained the poor savages together in bunches of 
ten. Each slave wore an iron ring around his neck 
and the chain passed through this ring and on to 
the rest of the ten. For days and weeks and months 
they marched along, their chains clanking and their 
shoulders bending beneath the heavy weight. From 
time to time the slave-drivers would jog them along 
with a few lashes from a four-cornered “hippo” 
hide MbokOj or whip. Quite naturally the life 
was far from pleasant to the chain-gang and they 
