?
African Camp Fires, by Stewart Edward White
The Project Gutenberg EBook of African Camp Fires, by Stewart Edward White This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: African Camp Fires
Author: Stewart Edward White
Release Date: December 24, 2004 [EBook #14451]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFRICAN CAMP FIRES ***
Produced by Steven Gibbs and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
AFRICAN CAMP FIRES
BY
STEWART EDWARD WHITE
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN AND NEW YORK
CONTENTS.
PART I.--TO THE ISLAND OF WAR.
I. THE OPEN DOOR
II. THE FAREWELL
III. PORT SAID
IV. SUEZ
V. THE RED SEA
VI. ADEN
VII. THE INDIAN OCEAN
VIII. MOMBASA
PART II.--THE SHIMBA HILLS.
IX. A TROPICAL JUNGLE
X. THE SABLE
XI. A MARCH ALONG THE COAST
XII. THE FIRE
PART III.--NAIROBI.
XIII. UP FROM THE COAST
XIV. A TOWN OF CONTRASTS
XV. PEOPLE
XVI. RECRUITING
PART IV.--A LION HUNT ON KAPITI.
XVII. AN OSTRICH FARM AT MACHAKOS
XVIII. THE FIRST LIONESS
XIX. THE DOGS
XX. BONDONI
XXI. RIDING THE PLAINS
XXII. THE SECOND LIONESS
XXIII. THE BIG LION
XXIV. THE FIFTEEN LIONS
PART V.--THE TSAVO RIVER.
XXV. VOI
XXVI. THE FRINGE-EARED ORYX
XXVII. ACROSS THE SERENGETTI
XXVIII. DOWN THE RIVER
XXIX. THE LESSER KUDU
XXX. ADVENTURES BY THE WAY
XXXI. THE LOST SAFARI
XXXII. THE BABU
PART VI.--IN MASAILAND.
XXXIII. OVER THE LIKIPIA ESCARPMENT
XXXIV. TO THE KEDONG
XXXV. THE TEANSPORT RIDER
XXXVI. ACROSS THE THIRST
XXXVII. THE SOUTHERN GUASO NYERO
XXXVIII. THE LOWER BENCHES
XXXIX. NOTES ON THE MASAI
XL. THROUGH THE ENCHANTED FOREST
XLI. NAIOKOTUKU
XLII. SCOUTING IN THE ELEPHANT FOREST
XLIII. THE TOPI CAMP
XLIV. THE UNKNOWN LAND
XLV. THE ROAN
XLVI. THE GREATER KUDU
XLVII. THE MAGIC PORTALS CLOSE
XLVIII. THE LAST TREK
PART I.
TO THE ISLAND OF WAR.
I.
THE OPEN DOOR.
There are many interesting hotels scattered about the world, with a few of which I am acquainted and with a great many of which I am not. Of course all hotels are interesting, from one point of view or another. In fact, the surest way to fix an audience's attention is to introduce your hero, or to display your opening chorus in the lobby or along the fa?ade of a hotel. The life, the movement and colour, the drifting individualities, the pretence, the bluff, the self-consciousness, the independence, the ennui, the darting or lounging servants, the very fact that of those before your eyes seven out of ten are drawn from distant and scattered places, are sufficient in themselves to invest the smallest hostelry with glamour. It is not of this general interest that I would now speak. Nor is it my intention at present to glance at the hotels wherein "quaintness" is specialized, whether intentionally or no. There are thousands of them; and all of them well worth the discriminating traveller's attention. Concerning some of them--as the old inns at Dives-sur-Mer and at Mont St. Michel--whole books have been written. These depend for their charm on a mingled gift of the unusual and the picturesque. There are, as I have said, thousands of them; and of their cataloguing, should one embark on so wide a sea, there could be no end. And, again, I must for convenience exclude the altogether charming places, like the Tour d'Argent of Paris, Simpson's of the Strand,[1] and a dozen others that will spring to every traveller's memory, where the personality of the host, or of a chef, or even a waiter, is at once a magnet for the attraction of visitors and a reward for their coming. These, too, are many. In the interest to which I would draw attention, the hotel as a building or as an institution has little part. It is indeed a fa?ade, a mise en scènebefore which play the actors that attract our attention and applause. The set may be as modernly elaborate as Peacock Alley of the Waldorf or the templed lobby of the St. Francis; or it may present the severe and Elizabethan simplicity of the stone-paved veranda of the Norfolk at Nairobi--the matter is quite inessential to the spectator. His appreciation is only slightly and indirectly influenced by these things. Sunk in his arm-chair--of velvet or of canvas--he puffs hard and silently at his cigar, watching and listening as the pageant and the conversation eddy by.
Of such hotels I number that gaudy and polysyllabic hostelry the Grand H?tel du Louvre et de la Paix at Marseilles. I am indifferent to the facts that it is situated on that fine thoroughfare, the Rue de Cannebière, which the proud and untravelled native devoutly believes to be the finest street in the world; that it possesses a dining-room of gilded and painted repoussé work so elaborate and wonderful that it surely must be intended to represent a tinsmith's dream of heaven; that its concierge is the most impressive human being on earth except Ludwig von Kampf (whom I have never seen); that its head waiter is sadder and
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code
Tip: The current page has been bookmarked automatically. If you wish to continue reading later, just open the
Dertz Homepage, and click on the 'continue reading' link at the bottom of the page.