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 CHAPTER VIII

SAFARI HUNTERS

In 1905 Nairobi was a town of tin houses, many black people, a few Hindus, and fewer white men. Before my departure for the Athi Plains, where I planned to begin my collections, I wished to find a place in Nairobi where I might store material as I sent it in from time to time from the field. Around and around I wandered without finding any one who was able to offer a helpful suggestion. Then one day, as I was passing the open door of an unpromising galvanized iron building, I heard the encouraging clatter of a typewriter and lost no time in investigating. At the rear of a bare room about thirty feet wide and forty feet long was a door on the other side of which someone was plying the typewriter furiously. Finally there came forth from behind that closed door a blue-eyed, red-haired chap, apparently extraordinarily busy and much annoyed at being interrupted. However, his annoyance vanished when I told him what I was looking for and he suggested that I use a third of the front part of his building at a rental of five rupees—about a dollar and a half—per month. This arrangement was eminently satisfactory to me and we closed the bargain at once.