The array of porters and 
From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt. 
killed scores of lion and rhinoceros and 
hundreds of elephant and buffalo; and 
these four animals are the most dangerous 
of the world’s big game, when hunted as 
they are hunted in Africa. To hear him 
tell of what he has seen and done is no less 
interesting to a naturalist than to a hunter. 
There were on the ship many men who 
loved wild nature, and who were keen 
hunters of big game; and almost every day, 
as we steamed over the hot, smooth waters 
of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, we 
would gather on deck around Selous to 
listen to tales of those strange adventures 
that only come to the man who has lived 
long the lonely life of the wilderness. 
On April 21 we steamed into the beau¬ 
tiful and picturesque harbor of Mombasa. 
Many centuries before the Christian era, 
dhows from Arabia, carrying seafarers of 
Semitic races whose very names have per¬ 
ished, rounded the Lion’s Head at Guar- 
dafui and crept slowly southward along the 
barren African coast. Such dhows exist 
to-day almost unchanged, and bold indeed 
were the men who first steered them across 
the unknown oceans. They were men 
of iron heart and supple conscience, who 
fronted inconceivable danger and hard- 
390 
ship; they established trading stations for 
gold and ivory and slaves; they turned 
these trading stations into little cities and 
sultanates, half Arab, half negro. Mom¬ 
basa was among them. In her time of brief 
splendor Portugal seized the town; the 
Arabs won it back; and now England 
holds it. It lies just south of the equator, 
and when we saw it the brilliant green of the 
tropic foliage showed the town at its best. 
We were welcomed to Government 
House in most cordial fashion by the acting 
Governor, Lieutenant-Governor Jackson, 
who is not only a trained public official of 
long experience, but a good field naturalist 
and a renowned big-game hunter; indeed I 
could not too warmly express my apprecia¬ 
tion of the hearty and generous courtesy 
with which we were received and treated 
alike by the official and the unofficial world 
throughout East Africa. We landed in 
the kind of torrential downpour that only 
comes in the tropics; it reminded me of 
Panama at certain moments in the rainy 
season. That night we were given a dinner 
by the Mombasa Club; and it was inter¬ 
esting to meet the merchants and planters 
of the town and the neighborhood as well 
as the officials. The former included not 
