CHAPTER XXIX IN MOMBASA MOMBASA is the terminus of the Uganda Rail¬ way as it comes down from Lake Victoria. It is the port of entry for all the sea-borne trade of the seven provinces of British East Africa, or Kenya Colony, as it is now called, Uganda, and adjacent territory. It is on an island halfway down the coast of East Africa and just below the Equator, where old Mother Earth is widest and thickest. If I should stick a peg down under the chair in which I am writing into the old lady’s waist, and then travel westward in a straight line I would soon reach the upper end of Lake Tanganyika, and a little later come out on the Atlantic Ocean just above the mouth of the Congo. Crossing that great sea, I should make my next landing in South America, at the mouth of the Amazon, and, going up the 'Amazon valley, I should pass Quito, in Ecuador, and then drop down to the Pacific. From there on the trip to the peg stuck in at Mombasa would comprise six¬ teen or more thousand miles of water travel. I should cross the Pacific and Indian oceans, and the only solid ground on the way would be the islands of New Guinea, Borneo, and Sumatra.

Three thousand miles from Port Said and more than six thousand miles from London, Mombasa is far below the latitude of the Philippines. It is just about a day by 236