Mombasa Is a Pretty Place
Transportation in Mombasa
The Spar and Pillow Fight
The pillow fight on the spar is the most fun. Two gladiators armed with pillows sit astride a spar and try to knock each other off. It requires a good deal of knack to keep your balance while some one is pounding you with a large pillow. You are not allowed to touch the spar with your hands, hence the difficulty of holding a difficult position. When a man begins to waver the other redoubles his attack, and slowly at first, but surely, the defeated gladiator tumbles off the spar into a canvas stretched several feet below. It is lots of fun, especially for the spectator and the winner.
Then, of course, there were other feats of intellectual and physical prowess in the Woermann competition, such as threading the needle, where you run across the deck, thread a needle held by a woman, and then drag her back to the starting point. The woman usually, in the excitement of the last spirited rush, falls over and is bodily dragged several yards, squealing wildly and waving a couple of much agitated deck shoes, and so forth.
Similar to this contest is the one where the gentleman dashes across the deck with several other equally dashing gentlemen, kneels at the feet of a woman who ties his necktie and then lights his cigarette. The game is to see who can do this the quickest and get back to the starting place first. If you have ever tried to light a cigarette in a terrible hurry and on a windy deck, you will appreciate the elements of uncertainty in the game.
These deck sports served to amuse and divert during the six days on the Indian Ocean, and then the ship's chart said that we were almost at Mombasa. The theoretical stage of the lion hunt was nearly over and it was now a matter of only a few days until we should be up against the "real thing." I sometimes wondered how I should act with a hostile lion in front of me—whether I would become panic-stricken or whether my nerve would hold true. There is lots of food for reverie when one is going against big game for the first time.
