Cairo to Kisumu

by Frank G. Carpenter

“My room at the Norfolk looks out on a stable yard where a baby lion as big as a Newfoundland dog is tied up. He is much too playful to suit me and, besides, he roars at night.”

In Nairobi the popular way to travel is in jinrikishas much like those of Japan but sometimes made in America. Two good-natured Negroes man each one and sing a monotonous song as they trot uphill and down.

The African smell is everywhere. It burdens the air of the market places, and I verily think it might be chopped up into blocks and sold as a new kind of phosphate. The natives cover themselves with hair oil and body grease, and the combination of this when it turns rancid with the natural effluvia which exhales from their persons is indescribable. Some of the blacks smear their faces with a mixture of grease and red clay, and cover their hair with the same material, so that they look more like copper Indians than Africans.

These Africans do all the hard work of Nairobi. They are hewers of wood and drawers of water. I see scores of them, carrying baskets of dirt on their heads and bundles of wood on their backs and pushing and pulling carts and wagons through the streets. Most of my trips from one place to another are made in two-wheeled carts hauled by wire-bedecked natives.

The retail business is done by East Indians, as is also the case at Mombasa. I am told this is so in every settlement on this part of the continent. The Hindus have made their way along all the travelled routes, until their little stores may be found in every large African village. They have trading stations upon Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika. They are very enterprising, and as they live upon almost nothing they can undersell the whites. They sell cotton of bright colours and of the most gorgeous patterns, wire for jewellery, and all sorts of knickknacks that the African wants. They deal also in European goods, and one can buy of them almost anything from a needle to a sewing machine. Here at Nairobi there is an Indian bazaar covering nine acres which is quite as interesting as any similar institution in Tunis, Cairo, Bombay, or Calcutta. The stores are all open at the front, and the men squat in them with their gay goods piled about them. These Hindus dress in a quaint costume not unlike that of the English clergyman who wears a long black coat buttoned up to the throat. The only difference is that the Hindu’s trousers may be of bright-coloured calico, cut very tight, and his head may be covered with a flat skullcap of velvet embroidered in gold. Moreover, his feet are usually bare.

But Nairobi is a British city, notwithstanding its African and Asiatic inhabitants; the English form the ruling class. They are divided into castes, almost as much as are the East Indians. At the head are the government officials, the swells of the town. They dress well and spend a great deal of time out of office hours playing tennis and golf, which have already been introduced into this part of the black continent. They also ride about on horseback and in carriages, and manage to make a good show upon very low salaries. Allied to them are the sportsmen and the noble visitors from abroad. A scattering element of dukes, lords, and second sons of noble families has come out to invest, or to hunt big game. They are usually men of means, for the prices of large tracts of land are high and it also costs considerable money to fit out a game-shooting expedition. In addition, there are land speculators, who are chiefly young men from England or South Africa. Dressed in riding clothes, big helmet hats, and top boots, they dash about the country on ponies, and are especially in evidence around the bars of the hotels. There are but few white women here. Some of the government officials have their wives with them, and now and then a titled lady comes out to hunt with her friends. I met three women who had themselves shot lions.

Nairobi has English doctors, dentists, and lawyers. It has one photographer and two firms which advertise themselves as safari outfitters. These men supply sportsmen with tents, provisions, and other things for shooting trips, as well as porters to carry their stuff and chase the lions out of the jungles so that the hunters may get a shot at them.

It seems strange to have newspapers under the shadow of Mt. Kenya, and within a half day’s ride on horseback to lion and rhinoceros hunting. Nevertheless, Nairobi has three dailies, which also issue weekly editions. They are all banking on the future of the town and all claim to be prosperous. They are good-sized journals, selling for from two to three annas, or from four to six cents each. They have regular cable dispatches giving them the big news of the world, and they furnish full reports of the local cricket, polo, tennis, and golf matches. As for the advertisements, most of them come from the local merchants and some are odd to an extreme. One of to-day’s papers carries an advertisement signed by a well-known American circus company which wants to buy a white rhinoceros, a giant hog, some wild dogs, a wild-tailed mongoose, and a bongo. Another advertisement, one made along farming lines, is that of the Homestead Dairy, and others state that certain merchants will outfit hunters for shooting. There are many land sales advertised, as well as machinery, American wagons, and all sorts of agricultural implements.