THE START—MOMBASA TO TA1TA. 
43 
tions. I am afraid that in recording my downright 
bad opinion of the native carriers—many of them pro¬ 
fessing Christians—which are to be found in the 
vicinity of the English missionary stations near Mom¬ 
basa, I am giving pain to my very kind friends, the 
missionaries who labour in those parts. I am sorry 
for this, for I am aware, more than any one perhaps, 
how thoroughly deserving of respect and support is 
their unselfish work in those regions. But truth 
must be told, and in the interests of travellers who 
succeed me in these districts, I warn them never, if 
they can help it, to engage porters at Mombasa. 
Independently of all questions of religion—Moham¬ 
medan and Christian alike—the inhabitants of the 
Mombasa district are a thoroughly bad lot. It is 
hopeless to win them by kindness, or infuse a spirit 
of discipline by sternness. They are liars, cowards, 
thieves, and drunkards. They were so when Krapf, 
the earnest pioneer of Christian missions, first came 
among them; they are so still, after nearly forty years 
of evangelization. Why is it that men got from Zan¬ 
zibar, Pangani, Mozambique, or elsewhere, should be 
so much superior ? It must be some inherent fault in 
the local race, because the few men whom I obtained 
from the Mombasa missions that were not natives of 
Mombasa, but had been trained in the mission schools, 
turned out all that could be desired. 
However, being unaware of all this, I had already 
vicariously engaged the bulk of my porters at Mom¬ 
basa, fearing to be disappointed at Zanzibar, as there 
is often a paucity of caravan-men in that place, owing 
to the constant demand. Even before I started for 
the interior, the true character of the Mombasa men 
began to dawn upon me, but I hesitated to take the 
