In Africa | Page 5

some children. I don't know how many children there were, but in the early morning there seemed to be a great number.
These Indian Ocean steamers are usually filled with an interesting lot of passengers. At first you may only speculate as to who and what they are and whither they are bound, but as the days go by you get acquainted with many of them and find out who nearly everybody is and all about him. On this steamer there were several interesting people. First in station and importance was Sir Percy Girouard, the newly appointed governor of British East Africa, who was going out to Nairobi to take his position. Sir Percy is a splendid type of man, only about forty-two years old, but with a career that has been filled with brilliant achievements. He was born in Canada and was knighted in 1900. He looks as Colonel Roosevelt looked ten years ago, and, in spite of a firm, definite personality of great strength, is also courteous and kindly. He has recently been the governor of northern Nigeria, and before that time served in South Africa and the Soudan. It was of him that Lord Kitchener said "the Soudan Railway would never have been built without his services."
The new governor was accompanied by two staff officers, one a Scotchman and the other an Irishman, and both of them with the clean, healthy look of the young British army officer. There would be a big reception at Mombasa, no doubt, with bands a-playing and fireworks popping, when the ship arrived with the new executive.
[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. "Crossing the Line" Ceremonies]
[Photograph: Mr. Stephenson, Mr. and Mrs. Akeley and Mr. McCutcheon. Courtesy of Boyce Balloonagraph Expedition]
[Drawing: Before and After Outfitting]
There were also several officials with high-sounding titles who were going out to their stations in German East Africa. These gentlemen were mostly accompanied by wives and babies and between them they imparted a spirited scene of domesticity to the life on shipboard. The effect of a man wheeling a baby carriage about the deck was to make one think of some peaceful place far from the deck of a steamer.
Little Tim was the life of the ship. He was a little boy aged eighteen months, who began life at Sombra, in Nyassaland, British Central Africa. Just now he was returning from England with his father and mother. Little Tim had curly hair, looked something like a brownie, and was brimming over with energy and curiosity every moment that he was awake. If left alone five minutes he was quite likely to try to climb up the rigging. Consequently he was never left alone, and the decks were constantly echoing with a fond mother's voice begging him not to "do that," or to "come right here, Tim." One of Tim's chief diversions was to divest himself of all but his two nearest articles of wear and sit in the scuppers with the water turned on. A crowd of passengers was usually grouped around him and watched his manoeuvers with intense interest. He was probably photographed a hundred times and envied by everybody on board. It was so fearfully hot in the Red Sea that to be seated in running water with almost no clothes on seemed about the nicest possible way to pass the time.
[Drawing: Little Tim]
There was a professional elephant hunter on board. He was a quiet, reserved sort of man, pleasant, and not at all bloodthirsty in appearance. He had spent twenty years shooting in Africa, and had killed three hundred elephants. On his last trip, during which he spent nearly four years in the Congo, he secured about two and one-half tons of ivory. This great quantity of tusks, worth nearly five dollars a pound, brought him over twenty thousand dollars, after paying ten per cent. to the Congo government. The Belgians place no limit upon the number of elephants one may shoot, just so they get their rake-off. In British territory, however, sportsmen are limited to only two elephants a year to those holding licenses to shoot. Our elephant hunter friend was now on his way back to shoot some more.
[Drawing: The Elephant Hunter and His Bag]
There was another interesting character on board who caused many of us to stop and think. He was a young British army officer who was mauled by a lioness several months ago in Somaliland. He now walked with a decided limp and was likely to lose his commission in the army because of physical infirmities. He was cheerful, pleasant, and looked hopefully forward to a time when he could have another go at a lion. This is the way the thing happened: Last March he was shooting in Somaliland and ran across a lioness. He shot her, but failed to