The Spokane press. [volume] (Spokane, Wash.) 1902-1939, 1909-07-31

Looks and Feels Like a Real
Nice Town, But Look Out
for Bug That Eats a Hole
in Your Foot and Lays
Eggs.
BY WARRINGTON DAWSON.
Special Correspondence to The Press

OI WShnINStSlN INV 0SiNs
Special Correspondence to The Press
NAIROBI, British East Africa,
June 25.-There are many peculiar
things about this little city, Maj
robi, which Col. Roosevelt makes
his hunting headquarters, and to
which place he returns for a rest
and to prepare for another expedi-
ton.
The climate is the most pecu-
liar. Look at the map and you
will find Nairobi about three de-
grees from the equator. You
might expect, therefore, to broil "a
hours at a time, be exposed to all
the terrible tropical diseases and
insects, and be surrounded by all
kinds of Africa's most savage ami
mails.
Nothing much doing.
When you get here you find
yourself at an altitude of some five
thousand feet in pleasant little
village which might be an Ameri-
can outpost town, with sun which
is certainly leaden at midday, but
which sets to allow a delightful
breeze at night, with no ferocious
beasts and few noXious insects Wis
ible, and in no particular danger
from disease.
Then you are rather apt to con-
clude that you are nearer the tenn
perate zone than the tropical, but
this last idea is a distinctly dan
gerous one to get into your head.
Venture out between sunrise and
sunset without a cork helmet and
the vertical sun rays will give you
a stroke and fever as sure as fate,
though the weather may appear
cool and the sky may be covered.
Dress too warmly at noon so as to
get Overheated, or too lightly at
dusk so as to get chilled, and you
will scarcely escape being i'll.
AS for beasts and insects, rejoice
at their not being conspicuous, but
do not wander too far out of town
at night without light, for there
are leopards still prying about af.
ter small dogs, which they love,
and there are awful insects called
jiggers, which burrow into your
feet and lay sacks of eggs there,
and if you allow the said eggs to
hatch out in the flesh you will
have serious trouble, which, N
some cases, has resulted in the
loss of a foot.
If an American or European
stays more than two or three years
at stretch, he becomes depressed
to the verge of melancholia and sc
violent in temper and unreasonable
in ideas that his best friends would
not know him. This rs an effect
of the sun on the head in spite OF
cork helmets, say climatologists
but a few months in temperate
zone suffices to set everything
right again, and man may return
! to Nairobi and feel good for sew
eral years more.
Nairobi's streets present many
picturesque scenes. Natives are
everywhere, and you do not forget
that this is still the black mans
country. Walk any day down the
main thoroughfare,- called Gov
eminent road, which marks the
very center of the town, and leads
past the government offices to the
station, and at what should be the
business part you will find a rude
cart surrounded by a swarm of XII
yuyus blocking the entire road
What may seem almost stranger
than their presence, is the fac1
that they are in nobody's way
since there are few people who
require to pass; and you may
have only few hundred yards tC
walk before your progress is
blocked by herd of young os
triches being driven along as II
the town belonged to them.
Although the usual means Of
transport are OK wagons, some
times camel cart enters town
with a shipment of furniture OF
provisions, and on rarer occasions
two are seen together, so that one
would think oneself somewhere
in Egypt. But the purely African
natives standing round about soon
dispel that illusion, since only So
malls have trace of the Egyptian
in their features, and there are few
of these in Nairobi.