ks like a procession of much importance.

The Norfolk Hotel is the chief rendezvous of Nairobi. In the course of
the afternoon nearly all the white men on hunting bent show up at the
hotel and patronize the bar. They come in wonderful hunting regalia and
in all the wonderful splendor of the Britisher when he is afield. There
is nearly always a great coming and going of men riding up, and of
rickshaws arriving and departing. Usually several tired sportsmen are
stretched out on the veranda of the long one-storied building, reading
the ancient London papers that are lying about. Professional guides,
arrayed in picturesque Buffalo Bill outfits, with spurs and
hunting-knives and slouch hats, are among those present, and amateur
sportsmen in crisp khaki and sun helmets and new puttees swagger back
and forth to the bar. There is no denying the fact that there is
considerable drinking in Nairobi. There was as much before we got there
as there was after we got there, however. After the arrival of the
European steamer at Mombasa business is brisk for several days as the
different parties sally forth for the wilds.

[Drawing: _At the Norfolk Hotel Bar_]

On our ship there were four different parties. A young American from
Boston, who has been spending several years doing archaeological work in
Crete, accompanied by a young English cavalry officer, were starting out
for a six-weeks' shoot south of the railway and near Victoria Nyanza.

Two professional ivory hunters were starting for German East Africa by
way of the lake. Mr. Boyce and his African balloonograph party of seven
white men were preparing for the photographing expedition in the Sotik,
and our party of four was making final preparations for our march.
Consequently there was much hurrying about, and Newland and Tarlton's
warehouse was the center of throngs of waiting porters and the scene of
intense activity as each party sorted and assembled its mountains of
supplies.

Seager and Wormald got off first, going by train to Kijabe, where they
were to begin their ten days' march in the Sotik. Here they were to try
their luck for two or three weeks and then march back, preparatory to
starting home.

The professional ivory hunters were slow in starting. There was delay in
getting mules. One of them had shot three hundred elephants in the
Belgian Congo during the last four years, and it was suspected he had
been poaching. The other had been caught by the Belgian authoritie