Page:Frank Owen - The Actress.djvu/36

24 cotton cloth; cloves, chillies, kanikies, machetes; in fact almost everything purchasable in the Occident—and more, for where is there any place which has such a spell of romance as that awesome, terrible land bordering on the Equator?

But within Colonel Mowbray's private room at the European Club all the splendid, jumbled maze of sweat and color was forgotten. For, as the two men sat and smoked their cigars, Mowbray was speaking earnestly, reminiscently, as though he were putting his very soul into his words.

"Several years ago," said he, "I was a curator in the employ of 'The National Zoological Society,' and was commissioned to accompany an expedition into the heart of the Kermashan Valley in British East Africa in quest of specimens of certain rare poisonous snakes for the London Museum. It is claimed by experts that there are more varieties of reptiles in this locality than in any other region in the world. Well, at length, after much calculating, purchasing and the wasting of much midnight oil, I set out on my journey with most of the paraphernalia necessary for such an expedition. In the course of several weeks I arrived at Mombasa, where the final arrangements were to be completed. In this town, at the Sports Club, I met Morris Warburton, an Englishman, who was to lead the expedition. He at once set about hiring fifty carriers, which took him several days, but at length everything was ready, and a fortnight later we were well on our way to the valley of snakes.