Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/418

 a big start; not long ago, Zanzibar was a closed port for six months, and visitors were compelled to remain there until the quarantine was raised. The Zanzibar hotel is a very bad one, and a good many of the visitors hired houses and cooks, and lived very comfortably Nearly all the natives of Mombasa are Mohammedans, and when we passed through the town just after darkness set in, it seems to me I saw thousands of men praying in the mosques. I have never seen a Mohammedan woman praying; with people of that faith, it seems to be the men who are religious. Among Protestants, you will find ten religious women to one religious man The old fort at Mombasa was once besieged thirty-three months, and when the garrison finally surrendered the victors found only eleven men and three women to butcher The Uganda State Railway begins at Mombasa, and runs to Lake Victoria, source of the river Nile. On the way is Niarobi, probably the most promising town in British East Africa. It was to Niarobi Sammy Marks was going, to open a new theatre. Nearly all the way to the lake, big game is constantly in sight from the railway carriages. Lake Victoria is the second largest in the world, only Lake Superior being larger. A trip of five days is provided on Victoria Lake, in large and comfortable ships, which are occasionally out of sight of land. It is in this section where ten thousand natives died within a year from the terrible sleeping sickness, which is so fatal that the government is now forcing the blacks to leave the infected district On the railroad to Victoria Lake is Tsavo station, where a pair of man-eating lions devoured thirty-three natives