THE START—MOMBASA TO TAITA . 
47 
At length all my arrangements were finished. The 
men had received and spent their advanced wages, and 
had sobered down after the drunken spree by which 
they nearly always inaugurate a journey into the 
Fig. 17. 
The Shaw s’ House, Kisolutini—-the first Mission Station in East Africa. 
interior. I myself was ready and anxious to be off. 
I longed for the bracing air of the inland plateaux to 
dispel the weakening fever from which I suffered, and 
gladly stepped into Captain Gissing’s pretty skiff, in 
