Nairobi has several hotels, the accommodations in which are comfortable. I am stopping at the Norfolk at the upper end of the town. It is a low one-story building with a wide porch in front, separated from the dirt street by a picket fence, and shaded by eucalyptus trees through which the wind seems to be ever sighing and moaning. The charges are three dollars and thirty-three cents a day, including meals, but I have to have my own servant to make my bed and run my errands. I have a room at the back with a fine view of the stable. A German sportsman next door has a little cub lion, about as big as a Newfoundland dog, tied in a box outside his window. During a part of the day he lets the baby lion out, and ties him by a rope to one of the pillars of the porch. The animal seems harmless, but its teeth are sharp, and it is entirely too playful to suit me. Besides, it roars at night.
To be a Swahili, a professing Mohammedan, and boy to a white man give three strong claims to distinction in African society. This chap is proud of his white men’s clothes and will steal soap to wash them.
Many Europeans have taken up farms in the vicinity of Naivasha, where the flat, grassy land is suitable for sheep. Though almost on the Equator, the altitude of more than 6,000 feet makes the climate tolerable for white men.
John Bull designs his public buildings in Africa with a view to making an impression on the native. His Majesty’s High Court of Kenya Colony, sitting at Mombasa, administers both British and Koranic laws.
The horses are fairly good here, but the charges for them are steep. When I ride out on horseback it costs me a dollar and sixty-five cents an hour, and the carriage rates are still higher. The best way to get about is in the jinrikishas, using the natives as beasts of burden, but for a long ride over the plains horses are necessary.
The heavy hauling of this part of East Africa is done mostly by the sacred cattle of India. I mean the clean-cut animals with great humps on their backs. They are fine-looking and are apparently well-bred. Some of these beasts are hitched to American wagons brought out here from Wisconsin. I saw such a team hauling a Kentucky plough through the streets of Nairobi yesterday.
Indeed, I find that American goods are slowly making their way into these wilds. American axes and sewing machines, and American sowers and planters are sold by the East Indians. The drug stores carry our patent medicines and every market has more or less American cottons. The wood cutters are using American axes, but they complain of the flat or oval holes made for the handles. They say that a round hole would be better, as the natives who do the wood cutting are very clumsy and the handles snap off at the axe. If round holes were used, heavier handles could be put in and the Negroes could make them themselves.