Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/521

Rh Escaped from it, and climbed down to the shore behind an old Portuguese fort. They cannot, after all, render the sea vulgar and provincial—the sound of it, the taste of it, the look of it—always the same: the same as when Columbus, standing at the mouth of the Tagus, scanned its horizons—the same as when Ulysses, battling against Mediterranean waves, felt its salt spray in his beard.

At twilight an Arab came on to the roof opposite and cried to the sun as it went down over Africa. I was thrilled. I had no idea the house opposite was a mosque, and this calling to the sinking sun seemed to coincide so exactly with my obsession as to the importance, the almost sacred significance, of each separate day. From where I stood I could see spread out before me the white roofs of the old town, with here and there a palm tree, grown up out of some far away delicious shady court; I could see the fine coloured tropical sky, cut and cut again by swift gliding sister swallows; and over and above all was the voice of this priest, resonant as a bell, passionately registering the passing of each consecrated hour.

May 31st. In the morning to the Union Cable offices only to learn that the Rufus Castle is not sailing till June nineteenth. Afterwards to the fruit market which I found to be an excellent place; I have seldom seen so bright and gay a scene: Indian, Somali, Swahili, and Goanese traders, jostling each other; and Arab boys, attractive and precocious, darting about as basket carriers. I had bought a basket and filling it with fruit of every kind set out for the sea. I shall never persuade myself to eat lunch at the Savoy Hotel.

June 1st. In the evening coming back to my attic after dinner, I was accosted by a native pandar. I followed him between innumerable native houses. He asked me in Swahili if I wanted a woman—a Swahili woman, or a Somali woman, or a woman from the Christian Mission. He led me to houses not far from my attic; evidently I live in the centre of the Mombasa brothels. We knocked at door after door; sometimes they would be standing outside and I would strike matches to look at their faces; most of them wore nose rings and were painted under their eyes; they were seldom pretty, and the streets and houses and they themselves were heavy with a strange smell of spice, mingled with the curious unmistakable smell of black human flesh.