CAIRO TO KISUMU leased it to the British for so much a year, but his flag floats above John Bull’s ensign everywhere on the island.

Most of the population of Mombasa is African. Of the twenty-six thousand inhabitants, only about three hun¬ dred and fifty are white. There are people here from all parts of the interior, some of them as black as jet, and a scattering few who are chocolate brown or yellow. These natives live in huts off by themselves in a large village ad¬ joining the European and Asiatic quarters. Their houses are of mud plastered upon a framework of poles and thatched with straw. The poles are put together without nails. There is not a piece of metal in any of them, except on the roof, where here and there a hole has been patched up with a rusty Standard Oil can. Very few of the huts are more than eight feet high, while some are so low that one has to stoop to enter them. They are so small that the beds are usually left outside the house during the day¬ time, and the majority of each family sleep on the floor.

I find this African village the most interesting part of Mombasa. Its inhabitants number over twenty-five thousand and comprise natives of perhaps one hundred tribes, each of which has its own dress and its own customs.

Most of the women are bare-headed and bare-legged; and some of the men are clad in little more than breech cloths. Now and then one sees a girl bare to the waist, and the little ones wear only jewellery. On the mainland all go more or less naked.

It is amazing how these people mutilate themselves so as to be what they consider beautiful. The ears of many of the women are punched like sieves, in order that they may hold rings of various kinds. At one place I saw a girl with a ring of corks, each about as big around as 240