CHAPTER VII 
TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST TO THE SOTIK 
On June 5 th we started south from Kijabe to trek through 
the thirst, through the waterless country which lies across 
the way to the Sotik. 
The preceding Sunday, at Nairobi, I had visited the 
excellent French Catholic Mission, had been most cour¬ 
teously received by the fathers, had gone over their planta¬ 
tions and the school in which they taught the children of 
the settlers (much to my surprise, among them were three 
Parsee children, who were evidently put on a totally differ¬ 
ent plane from the other Indians, even the Goanese), and 
had been keenly interested in their account of their work 
and of the obstacles with which they met. 
At Kijabe I spent several exceedingly interesting hours 
• at the American Industrial Mission. Its head, Mr. Hurl- 
burt, had called on me in Washington at the White House, 
in the preceding October, and I had then made up my 
mind that if the chance occurred I must certainly visit his 
mission. It is an interdenominational mission, and is car¬ 
ried on in a spirit which combines to a marked degree broad 
sanity and common sense with disinterested fervor. Of 
course, such work, under the conditions which necessarily 
obtain in East Africa, can only show gradual progress; but 
I am sure that missionary work of the Kijabe kind will be 
an indispensable factor in the slow uplifting of the natives. 
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