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Updated: May 22, 2025
Before coming to Nairobi I had read a lot about it, and yet when I reached the place it seemed as though the descriptions had failed to prepare me for what I saw. We arrived under unusual conditions.
Whether the funny little narrow-gauge railroad exists for Nairobi, or Nairobi for the railroad, it would be difficult to say. Between Mombasa and this interior placed-to-order town, certainly, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, either in passengers or freight, to justify building the line. That distance is, if I remember it correctly, about three hundred and twenty miles.
Nairobi is a thriving, bustling city, with motor cars, electric lights, clubs, race meets, balls, banquets, and all the frills that constitute an up-to-date community. Carriages and dog-carts and motorcycles rush about, and lords and princes and earls sit upon the veranda of the leading hotel in hunting costumes.
It was to this that MacKenzie now set himself; and he entered into communication with the directors of the company and with the commissioner at Nairobi. But it seemed as if the fates would snatch from him all enjoyment of the laurels he had won, for on their way towards Nairobi, Alec and Dr. Adamson were attacked by blackwater fever. For weeks Alec lay at the point of death.
This preliminary trip was intended to perfect our shooting, so that later, when in real lion country, we might be better equipped to take on the king of beasts with some promise of hitting him. The tree-tops and corrugated iron roofs of Nairobi had hardly dropped behind a long, sun-soaked hump of the Athi Plains when I began to peel my eyes inquiringly for lions.
All the lion stories that I had heard for the preceding few months paraded back and forth in my memory, and if ever a horizon was thoroughly scanned for lion, that horizon just out of Nairobi was the one. Hartebeests in droves loped awkwardly away from the trail and then turned and looked with wondering interest at us. Zebras, too fat to run, trotted off, and also turned to observe the invaders.
The moment any white man walks to the edge of the veranda a half-dozen of the rickshaws across the street career madly around the corners of the fence, bumping, colliding, careening dangerously, to drop beseechingly in serried confusion close around the step. The rickshaw habit is very strong in Nairobi.
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.
Swahili porters are considered the best, but there are not enough to go round, so we had to take Swahilis, Bagandas, Kikuyus, Kavirondos, Lumbwas, Minyamwezis, and a lot more of assorted races. Each porter carries sixty pounds on his head, and when the whole outfit is on the trail it looks like a procession of much importance. The Norfolk Hotel is the chief rendezvous of Nairobi.
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