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WHERE MEN GO NAKED Near the station there is a cotton ginnery where consider¬ able quantities of cotton from Uganda are ginned and baled for export. A trail leads across country from Kisumu to Mumias, forty-eight miles away, and to Jinja, the source of the Nile.
The European population consists of some soldiers be¬ longing to the King’s African Rifles, of the government officials, and of some employees of the railroad. The offi¬ cials put on great airs. Among the passengers who came in with me yesterday was a judge who will settle the dis¬ putes among the natives. He was met at the cars by some soldiers and a gang of convicts in chains. The latter had come to carry his baggage and other belongings to his galvanized iron house on the hill and each was dressed in a heavy iron collar with iron chains extending from it to his wrists and ankles. Nevertheless, they were able to aid in lifting the boxes and in pushing them off on trucks, prodded to their work all the while by the guns of the soldiers on guard.
But let us ‘Take our feet in our hands,” as Uncle Remus says, and tramp about. Later on we may march off into the country through which I travelled for about fifty miles on my way here. In the town itself we may now and then see a man with a blanket wrapped around him, and the men frequently wear waist cloths behind or in front. Outside of the town they are stark naked. All have skins of a dark chocolate brown. They have rather intelli¬ gent faces, woolly hair, and lips and noses like those of a Negro. They belong to the Bantu family and are among the best formed of the peoples of Africa. Some one has said that travelling through their country is like walking through miles of living statuary.
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