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Updated: October 11, 2024
As Gordon pointed out, that place was nearly 1,100 miles from Khartoum, and only 900 from Mombasa, while the advance to the Lakes increased the distance from the one place by nearly 300 miles, and reduced that to the other in the same measure.
"And then you get your ivory and make the magic pass, and presto! it is in Mombasa," she said, with a faint sarcasm. "You mean I have not men enough to carry out ivory. Well, that is true. But you see my habit is to get my ivory first and then to get shenzis from the people roundabout to act as porters," he explained to her gravely. Apparently she hesitated, in two minds as to what next to say.
The common porters were indeed shenzis wild men picked up from jungle and veldt as they were needed; and not at all of the professional porter class to be had at Mombasa; Nairobi, Dar-es-salaam, or Zanzibar. Simba's eyes passed over them contemptuously, but rested with more interest on the smaller body of askaris, headmen, and gun bearers.
In the principal street of Mombasa appropriately called Vasco da Gama Street there still stands a curiously shaped pillar which is said to have been erected by this great seaman in commemoration of his visit. Scarcely had the anchor been dropped, when, as if by magic, our vessel was surrounded by a fleet of small boats and "dug-outs" manned by crowds of shouting and gesticulating natives.
There were also motion pictures taken on the ship that brought us down from Naples to Mombasa, and it was most interesting to see our fellow passengers and friends reproduced before us in their various athletic activities while on shipboard. Mr. Boyce gave an afternoon show for children, an evening show for grown-ups, and was to give another for the natives the following night.
The remaining necessities, guns, ammunition, camera supplies, medical supplies, clothes, helmets, and so on, we assembled after two days of prodigious hustling. There was nothing then to be done except to hope that all our mountainous mass of equipment would be safely installed on the steamer for Mombasa.
When Governor of the Cape Colony, he sent word up-country, by David Livingstone, that he would be glad of any manuscripts throwing light upon the Greeks and Romans in Africa. To a British man-of-war, making patrol of the Mombasa coast, there rowed out a boat, having a respectable old Arab gentleman in the stern-sheets.
We told the proprietor of our dastardly conduct, but cautioned him not to liberate the captives until the steamer was hull down on the horizon. So by this time I suppose there are two little white dogs searching Mombasa for two missing Americans and wondering at the duplicity of human nature. We imagined that the ship from Mombasa to Bombay would be nearly uninhabited by passengers.
Yet this is what actually happened: We had discharged our safari, packed up our tents, and were just ready to start to Mombasa to catch a ship for Bombay. A telegram unexpectedly arrived, saying that the boat would not sail until three days later, so we decided to put in two or three more mornings of shooting out beyond the limits of the city.
In Khartum there are schools, hospitals, churches, and other public buildings, and one can travel safely by steamboat up to the great lakes. Gordon's scheme to connect the Victoria Nyanza with Mombasa on the coast has been carried out, and a railway has been constructed through British East Africa.
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