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November 6, 1934:   the current date. Our Heroes have been in Mombasa for 11 days total. 18 days prior (October 19th), while at Suez, we were asked to look into the strange attacks by "flying tigers."

The rumor, fear, uncertainty, doubt etc around the animal attacks in the interior are not yet at the scale of the Tsavo incident (back in the late 1890s). However ...it is that memory that is raising concern quickly!  The first attacks were over 3 months ago (in September), but it has only been in the last few weeks that a dozen more disappearances were made known.

What has really stirred things up was the death of 4 King's African Rifles troops, and the mauling of 2 others. A squad from the reserve battalion of the 3 KAR out of Nairobi was on patrol investigating sightings of a group of strange armed men in the vicinity of the eastern edges of Lake Victoria. They were apparently attacked just before dawn about 10 days ago (that is, about 28 October).

We are off to the Rift Valley, via Nairobi. If Our Heroes depart on the 7 p.m. daily train, we can reach Nairobi on the morning of the 7th, spend the day asking more questions and obtaining expedition-ey stuff, spend the night, and then depart on the morning of the 8th for Kisumu. That would put us in Kisumu at 5 pm.

the railway near Kisumu

"The building of the Kenya Uganda Railway from Mombasa to Kisumu must rank high in the top ten great railway building engineering achievements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Nakuru to Kisumu section being the most difficult with its innumerable steel viaducts over deep chasms and valleys and still keeping to a 2% ruling grade." 

the Rift Valley, 1936 

Kisumu, a port on Lake Victoria. Pop. about 4,000. A busy port, with warehouses, cranes, etc. -- even a shipyard. Tea, coffee, tropical fruit and cane sugar farming are important in the area, as is the fishing industry. There are two hotels for Europeans, a small European hospital, another hospital for Africans and other non-whites, a sort of yacht club, a swimming pool for the whites, an ice works, a couple of weekly newspapers operated by missionaries, and other municipal services (a few telephones, but no central electricity or sewage). Corrugated iron and papyrus thatch make up most of the buildings; wide verandahs are common. A lot of the population are Arabic or Indian (Gujaratis, Punjabi Muslims, Hindu Punjabis, Sikhs); there is a small Chinese community. Railway staff and policemen are Sikhs, various other Indians, and Africans. A British officer oversees the police; the senior Sikh sergeant is a veteran of the 14th Ferozepore Sikh regiment, and served in the Boxer Rebellion! The KAR has a company-sized barrack compound here, but there are often no soldiers present. There is a mosque, a Hindu temple, a Sikh temple, a couple of small Catholic churches (one is technically a cathedral), and a lot of various Protestant churches operated by missionaries. Every day, a four-engined Imperial Airways AW.15 "Atalanta" passenger plane lands at the airfield, going either north towards Cairo, or east (to Nairobi and eventually to South Africa). Once or twice a year, the RAF puts on an appearance. There are large numbers of mosquitoes in the town, which is one of the most malaria-infected areas in Africa. In the lake hippos and crocodiles are a threat to one's health. Dystentery is also an issue, what with the lack of proper sewers and all. Convicts are employed clearing the papyrus and other shore plants, hoping to keep the mosquito population down.

the airport in Kisumu in 1936