In Africa | Page 8

Two men, with hands and knees hobbled with a stick and stout rope, seat themselves inside a circle, and the game is for each one to try to put the other outside the circle. Neither can use his hands.
[Drawing: The Cock Fight]
It is like wrestling in a sitting position with both hands tied, the mode of attack being to topple over one's opponent and then bunt him out of the circle. There is considerable skill in the game and a fearful lot of hard work. By the time the victor has won, the seat of the trousers of each of the two contending heroes has cleaned the deck until it shines--the deck, not the trousers.
In a similar way the deck is benefited by the "are you there" game. Two men are blindfolded, armed with long paper clubs, and then lie at full length on the deck, with left hands clasped. One then says, "Are you there?" and when the other answers, "I am," he makes a wild swat at where he thinks the other's head to be. Of course, when the man says "I am," he immediately gets his head as far away from where it was when he spoke as is possible while clasping his opponent's hand. The "Are you there" man makes a wild swing and lands some place with a prodigious thump. He usually strikes the deck and seldom hits the head of the other man. If one of them hits the other's head three times he wins. In the meantime the deck has been thoroughly massaged by the two recumbent heroes as they have moved back and forth in their various offensive and defensive manoeuvers.
[Drawing: "Are You There?"]
[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. A Study in Mombasa Shadows]
[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. Mombasa Is a Pretty Place]
[Photograph: Transportation in Mombasa]
[Drawing: 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.
[Drawing: Chalking the Pig's Eye]
We landed at Mombasa September sixteenth, seventeen days out from Naples.
Mombasa is a little island about two by three miles in extent. It is riotous with brilliant vegetation, and, as seen after a long sea voyage through the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, it looks heavenly except for the heat. Hundreds of great baobab trees with huge, bottle-like trunks and hundreds of broad spreading mango trees give an effect of tropical luxuriance that is hardly to be excelled in beauty anywhere in the East. Large ships that stop at the island usually wind their course through a narrow channel and land their passengers and freight at the dock at Kilindini, a mile and a half from the old Portuguese town