After dinner we sat out until midnight in the teakwood chairs of the upper gallery, staring through the arches into the black, mysterious night, for it was very hot, and we rather dreaded the necessary mosquito veils as likely to prove stuffy.  The mosquitoes are few in Mombasa, but they are very deadly—­very.  At midnight the thermometer stood 87 deg.  F.

Our premonitions as to stuffiness were well justified.  After a restless night we came awake at daylight to the sound of a fine row of some sort going on outside in the streets.  Immediately we arose, threw aside the lattices, and hung out over the sill.

The chalk-white road stretched before us.  Opposite was a public square, grown with brilliant flowers, and flowering trees.  We could not doubt the cause of the trouble.  An Indian on a bicycle, hurrying to his office, had knocked down a native child.  Said child, quite naked, sat in the middle of the white dust and howled to rend the heavens—­whenever he felt himself observed.  If, however, the attention of the crowd happened for the moment to be engrossed with the babu, the injured one sat up straight and watched the row with interested, rolling, pickaninny eyes.  A native policeman made the centre of a whirling, vociferating group.  He was a fine-looking chap, straight and soldierly, dressed in red tarboosh, khaki coat bound close around the waist by yards and yards of broad red webbing, loose, short drawers of khaki, bare knees and feet, and blue puttees between.  His manner was inflexible.  The babu jabbered excitedly; telling, in all probability, how he was innocent of fault, was late for his work, etc.  In vain.  He had to go; also the kid, who now, seeing himself again an object of interest, recommenced his howling.  Then the babu began frantically to indicate members of the crowd whom he desired to retain as witnesses.  Evidently not pleased with the prospect of appearing in court, those indicated promptly ducked and ran.  The policeman as promptly pursued and collared them one by one.  He was a long-legged policeman, and he ran well.  The moment he laid hands on a fugitive, the latter collapsed; whereupon the policeman dropped him and took after another.  The joke of it was that the one so abandoned did not try again to make off, but stayed as though he had been tagged at some game.  Finally the whole lot, still vociferating, moved off down the white road.

For over an hour we hung from our window sill, thoroughly interested and amused by the varied life that deployed before our eyes.  The morning seemed deliciously cool after the hot night, although the thermometer stood high.  The sky was very blue, with big piled white clouds down near the horizon.  Dazzling sun shone on the white road, the white buildings visible up and down the street, the white walls enclosing their gardens, and the greenery and colours of the trees within them.  For from what we could see from our window we immediately voted tropical vegetation quite up to advertisement:  whole trees of gaudy red or yellow or bright orange blossoms, flowering vines, flowering shrubs, peered over the walls or through the fences; and behind them rose great mangoes or the slenderer shafts of bananas and cocoanut palms.