ysical
prowess in the _Woermann_ competition, such as threading the needle,
where you run across the deck, thread a needle held by a woman, and then
drag her back to the starting point. The woman usually, in the
excitement of the last spirited rush, falls over and is bodily dragged
several yards, squealing wildly and waving a couple of much agitated
deck shoes, and so forth.

Similar to this contest is the one where the gentleman dashes across the
deck with several other equally dashing gentlemen, kneels at the feet of
a woman who ties his necktie and then lights his cigarette. The game is
to see who can do this the quickest and get back to the starting place
first. If you have ever tried to light a cigarette in a terrible hurry
and on a windy deck, you will appreciate the elements of uncertainty in
the game.

These deck sports served to amuse and divert during the six days on the
Indian Ocean, and then the ship's chart said that we were almost at
Mombasa. The theoretical stage of the lion hunt was nearly over and it
was now a matter of only a few days until we should be up against the
"real thing." I sometimes wondered how I should act with a hostile lion
in front of me--whether I would become panic-stricken or whether my
nerve would hold true. There is lots of food for reverie when one is
going against big game for the first time.

[Drawing: _Chalking the Pig's Eye_]

We landed at Mombasa September sixteenth, seventeen days out from
Naples.

Mombasa is a little island about two by three miles in extent. It is
riotous with brilliant vegetation, and, as seen after a long sea voyage
through the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, it looks heavenly except for
the heat. Hundreds of great baobab trees with huge, bottle-like trunks
and hundreds of broad spreading mango trees give an effect of tropical
luxuriance that is hardly to be excelled in beauty anywhere in the East.
Large ships that stop at the island usually wind their course through a
narrow channel and land their passengers and freight at the dock at
Kilindini, a mile and a half from the old Portuguese town of Mombasa,
where all the life of the island is centered. There are many relics of
the old days around the town of Mombasa and the port of Kilindini, but
since the British have been in possession a brisk air of progress and
enterprise is evident everywhere. Young men and young women in tennis
flannels, and other typical symptoms of British occupation are
consta