After breakfast we put on our sun helmets and went forth curiously to
view the town. We found it roughly divided into four quarters--the old
Portuguese, the Arabic, the European, and the native. The Portuguese
comprises the outer fringe next the water-front of the inner bay. It is
very narrow of street, with whitewashed walls, balconies, and wonderful
carven and studded doors. The business of the town is done here. The
Arabic quarter lies back of it--a maze of narrow alleys winding
aimlessly here and there between high white buildings, with occasionally
the minarets and towers of a mosque. This district harboured, besides
the upper-class Swahilis and Arabs, a large number of East Indians.
Still back of this are thousands of the low grass, or mud and wattle
huts of the natives, their roofs thatched with straw or palm. These are
apparently arranged on little system. The small European population
lives atop the sea bluffs beyond the old fort in the most attractive
bungalows. This, the most desirable location of all, has remained open
to them because heretofore the fierce wars with which Mombasa, "the
Island of Blood," has been swept have made the exposed seaward lands
impossible.

No idle occupation can be more fascinating than to wander about the
mazes of this ancient town. The variety of race and occupation is
something astounding. Probably the one human note that, everywhere
persisting, draws the whole together is furnished by the water-carriers.
Mombasa has no water system whatever. The entire supply is drawn from
numberless picturesque wells scattered everywhere in the crowded centre,
and distributed mainly in Standard Oil cans suspended at either end of a
short pole. By dint of constant daily exercise, hauling water up from a
depth and carrying it various distances, these men have developed the
most beautifully powerful figures. They proceed at a half trot, the
slender poles, with forty pounds at either end, seeming fairly to cut
into their naked shoulders, muttering a word of warning to the loiterers
at every other breath--semeelay! semeelay! No matter in what part of
Mombasa you may happen to be, or at what hour of the day or night, you
will meet these industrious little men trotting along under their
burdens.

Everywhere also are the women, carrying themselves proudly erect, with a
free swing of the hips. They wear invariably a single sheet of cotton
cloth printed in blue or black with the most astonishing borde