CAIRO TO KISUMU eighty miles, and is sometimes called the “Great Horn of Africa.” It ends in Cape Guardafui, of which we shall have a good view from our steamer as it leaves the gulf and starts south.

The cape is a mighty bluff rising almost straight up from the blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Its sides are of black rock, ragged and rugged, and its top is covered with sand. There is sand at its foot and lodged in the crevices, making yellow streaks against the black back¬ ground. Beyond the cape extend sandy hills which swell over one another until they are lost in the distance. The country all about is desert. Neither trees, bushes, habi¬ tations, nor animals are to be seen. The clouds hang low over the cape, and out at sea the air is as moist as that of Virginia in April. Seen from the ocean, the bluff assumes the outlines of a sleeping lion with its tail in the sand. Still farther out it looks like a fortification towering over the sea. One hundred and thirty miles to the eastward, on the direct route to India, is Sokotra Island, owned by the British.

We went on southward, passing British Somaliland, a country a little larger than the State of Missouri, with a population of several thousand Mohammedan nomads who roam about from pasture to pasture with their cattle and camels. The colony came into the hands of the British after the war with the Mahdi, having belonged before that to Egypt. It was first administered by the government of India, but it is now managed directly from London.

Back of the European colonies that fringe the coast lies Abyssinia, one of the most interesting countries of the Black Continent. With the exception of Liberia, it is the only one that is independent of Europe. Recognized 226