There were about sixty first-class passengers on board and a fair number in the second class.

These passengers represented a dozen or so different nationalities, and were bound for all sorts of places in East, Central, and South Africa.

Some were government officials going out to their stations, some were army officers, some were professional hunters, and some were private hunters going out "for" to shoot.
There were also a number of women on board and some children.

I don't know how many children there were, but in the early morning there seemed to be a great number.
These Indian Ocean steamers are usually filled with an interesting lot of passengers.

At first you may only speculate as to who and what they are and whither they are bound, but as the days go by you get acquainted with many of them and find out who nearly everybody is and all about him.