June 26, 1915

3rd Battalion
Kings African Rifles
Nairobi, British East Africa
26/6/15

Dear Father,
We arrived here last week after a very uneventful journey on the French boat.  There was a good number of passengers on board including Lady Cranworth and a miscellaneous lot of English, French and Belgians.  The heat in the Red Sea was terrific, but it is very cold here.  I never imagined it could have been so cold in a tropical country.  Nairobi is 5000 feet above sea level & you have to wear a thick shirt & flannel. It seems to be a fine country for agricultural purposes and the vegetables that grow at home thrive quite well but judging by the way everything is done from the Govt to the settlers there seems to be very little money in the country.  There are large stretches of open land & so far I have seen none of the thick jungle with which the whole of Malaya is covered.  What jungle there is I have seen is very small scrub.  We saw large herds of some sort of game coming up in the train.  We all had to report here which is the headquarters of the 3rd battalion & also of the General staff.  We were then distributed amongst the various battalions.  Two of them were sent out fighting straight away and I hear that the force they went with has had a great success up on the lakes.  I have to go over & join my Company next week with the 3rd Bat.  The service dress is shorts, puttees and tunic but the regular officers have been originals in the Indian Army & transferred here. They are a very swank crowd.  The Indian troops here have been a failure & they are only using them now for patrol work.  They are what they call Imperial Service Troops provided by the rulers of the nation states in India.  According to all accounts they seem to bolt immediately they come under fire.  I will have to get this posted at once or it will not go for another month.  I am writing it in my tent.

Yours Aye,

Tom