* Except in the greatest emergencies a gunbearer would neverthink of carrying any sort of a burden.
This was pleasing, but it would never do, at this stage of the game, to let him think so, neither on his own account nor that of the real gunbearers.
“You will bring in meat today also,” said I, for I was indeed a little shorthanded, “and you will learn how to make the top incision straighter.”
When we had reached camp I handed him the Springfield.
“Clean this,” I told him.
He departed with it, returning it after a time for my inspection. It looked all right. I catechized him on the method he had employed-for high velocities require very especial treatment-and found him letter perfect.
“You learned this also by watching?”
“Yes, bwana, I watched the gunbearers by the fire, evenings.”
Evidently Fundi had been preparing for his chance.
Next day, as he walked alongside, I noticed that he had not removed the leather cap, or sight protector, that covers the end of the rifle and is fastened on by a leather thong. Immediately I called a halt.
“Fundi,” said I, “do you know that the cover should be in your pocket? Suppose a rhinoceros jumps up very near at hand: how can you get time to unlace the thong and hand me the rifle?”
He thrust the rifle at me suddenly. In some magical fashion the sight cover had disappeared!
“I have thought of this,” said he, “and I have tied the thong, so, in order that it come away with one pull; and I snatch it off, so, with my left hand while I am giving you the gun with my right hand. It seemed good to keep the cover on, for there are many branches, and the sight is very easy to injure.”
Of course this was good sense, and most ingenious; Fundi bade fair to be quite a boy, but the native African is very easily spoiled. Therefore, although my inclination was strongly to praise him, I did nothing of the sort.
“A gunbearer carries the gun away from the branches,” was my only comment.
Shortly after occurred an incident by way of deeper test. We were all riding rather idly along the easy slope below the foothills. The grass was short, so we thought we could see easily everything there was to be seen; but, as we passed some thirty yards from a small tree, an unexpected and unnecessary rhinoceros rose from an equally unexpected and unnecessary green hollow beneath the tree, and charged us. He made straight for Billy. Her mule, panic-stricken, froze with terror in spite of Billy's attack with a parasol. I spurred my own animal between her and the charging brute, with some vague idea of slipping off the other side as the rhino struck. F. and B. leaped from their own animals, and F., with a little.28 calibre rifle, took a hasty shot at the big brute. Now, of course a.28 calibre rifle would hardly injure a rhino, but the bullet happened to catch his right shoulder just as he was about to come down on his right foot. The shock tripped him up as neatly as though he had been upset by a rope. At the same instant Billy's mule came to its senses and bolted, whereupon I too jumped off. The whole thing took about two finger snaps of time. At the instant I hit the ground, Fundi passed the double rifle across the horse's back to me.
Note two things to the credit of Fundi: in the first place, he had not bolted; in the second place, instead of running up to the left side of my mount and perhaps colliding with and certainly confusing me, he had come up on the right side and passed the rifle to me ACROSS the horse. I do not know whether or not he had figured this out beforehand, but it was cleverly done.
The rhinoceros rolled over and over, like a shot rabbit, kicked for a moment, and came to his feet. We were now all ready for him, in battle array, but he had evidently had enough. He turned at right angles and trotted off, apparently-and probably-none the worse for the little bullet in his shoulder.
Fundi now began acquiring things that he supposed befitting to his dignity. The first of these matters was a faded fez, in which he stuck a long feather. From that he progressed in worldly wealth. How he got it all, on what credit, or with what hypnotic power, I do not know. Probably he hypothecated his wages, certainly he had his five rupees.
At any rate he started out with a ragged undershirt and a pair of white, baggy breeches. He entered Nairobi at the end of the trip with a cap, a neat khaki shirt, two water bottles, a cartridge belt, a sash with a tassel, a pair of spiral puttees, an old pair of shoes, and a personal private small boy, picked up en route from some of the savage tribes, to carry his cooking pot, make his fires, draw his water, and generally perform his lordly behests. This was indeed “more-than-oriental-splendour!”
From now on Fundi considered himself my second gunbearer. I had no use for him, but Fundi's development interested me, and I wanted to give him a chance. His main fault at first was eagerness. He had to be rapped pretty sharply and a good number of times before he discovered that he really must walk in the rear. His habit of calling my attention to perfectly obvious things I cured by liberal sarcasm. His intense desire to take his own line as perhaps opposed to mine when we were casting about on trail, I abated kindly but firmly with the toe of my boot. His evident but mistaken tendency to consider himself on an equality with Memba Sasa we both squelched by giving him the hard and dirty work to do. But his faults were never those of voluntary omission, and he came on surprisingly; in fact so surprisingly that he began to get quite cocky over it. Not that he was ever in the least aggressive or disrespectful or neglectful-it would have been easy to deal with that sort of thing-but he carried his head pretty high, and evidently began to have mental reservations. Fundi needed a little wholesome discipline. He was forgetting his porter days, and was rapidly coming to consider himself a full-fledged gunbearer.
The occasion soon arose. We were returning from a buffalo hunt and ran across two rhinoceroses, one of which carried a splendid horn. B. wanted a well developed specimen very much, so we took this chance. The approach was easy enough, and at seventy yards or so B. knocked her flat with a bullet from his.465 Holland. The beast was immediately afoot, but was as promptly smothered by shots from us all. So far the affair was very simple, but now came complication. The second rhinoceros refused to leave. We did not want to kill it, so we spent a lot of time and pains shooing it away. We showered rocks and clods of earth in his direction; we yelled sharply and whistled shrilly. The brute faced here and there, his pig eyes blinking, his snout upraised, trying to locate us, and declining to budge. At length he gave us up as hopeless, and trotted away slowly. We let him go, and when we thought he had quite departed, we approached to examine B.'s trophy.
Whereupon the other craftily returned; and charged us, snorting like an engine blowing off steam. This was a genuine premeditated charge, as opposed to a blind rush, and it is offered as a good example of the sort.
The rhinoceros had come fairly close before we got into action. He headed straight for F. and myself, with B. a little to one side. Things happened very quickly. F. and I each planted a heavy bullet in his head; while B. sent a lighter Winchester bullet into the ribs. The rhino went down in a heap eleven yards away, and one of us promptly shot him in the spine to finish him.
Personally I was entirely concentrated in the matter at hand-as is always the way in crises requiring action-and got very few impressions from anything outside. Nevertheless I imagined, subconsciously that I had heard four shots. F. and B. disclaimed more than one apiece, so I concluded myself mistaken, exchanged my heavy rifle with Fundi for the lighter Winchester, and we started for camp, leaving all the boys to attend to the dead rhinos. At camp I threw down the lever of my Winchester-and drew out an exploded shell!
Here was a double crime on Fundi's part. In the first place, he had fired the gun, a thing no bearer is supposed ever to do in any circumstances short of the disarmament and actual mauling of his master. Naturally this is so, for the white man must be able in an emergency to depend ABSOLUTELY on his second gun being loaded and ready for his need. In the second place, Fundi had given me an empty rifle to carry home. Such a weapon is worse than none in case of trouble; at least I could have gone up a tree in the latter case. I would have looked sweet snapping that old cartridge at anything dangerous!
Therefore after supper we stationed ourselves in a row before the fire, seated in our canvas chairs, and with due formality sent word that we wanted all the gunbearers. They came and stood before us. Memba Sasa erect, military, compact, looking us straight in the eye; Mavrouki slightly bent forward, his face alive with the little crafty, calculating smile peculiar to him; Simba, tall and suave, standing with much social ease; and Fundi, a trifle frightened, but uncertain as to whether or not he had been found out.
We stated the matter in a few words.
“Gunbearers, this man Fundi, when the rhinoceros charged, fired Winchi. Was this the work of a gunbearer?”
The three seasoned men looked at each other with shocked astonishment that such depravity could exist.
“And being frightened, he gave back Winchi with the exploded cartridge in her. Was that the work of a gunbearer?”
“No, bwana,” said Fundi humbly.
“You, the gunbearers, have been called because we wish to know what should be done with this man Fundi.”
It should be here explained that it is not customary to kiboko, or flog, men of the gunbearer class. They respect themselves and their calling, and would never stand that sort of punishment. When one blunders, a sarcastic scolding is generally sufficient; a more serious fault may be punished on the spot by the white man's fist; or a really bad dereliction may cause the man's instant degradation from the post. With this in mind we had called the council of gunbearers. Memba Sasa spoke.
“Bwana,” said he, “this man is not a true gunbearer. He is no longer a true porter. He carries a gun in the field, like a gunbearer; and he knows much of the duty of gunbearer. Also he does not run away nor climb trees. But he carries in the meat; and he is not a real gunbearer. He is half porter and half gunbearer.”
“What punishment shall he have?”
“Kiboko,” said they.
“Thank you. Bass!”
They went, leaving Fundi. We surveyed him, quietly.
“You a gunbearer!” said we at last. “Memba Sasa says you are half gunbearer. He was wrong. You are all porter; and you know no more than they do. It is in our mind to put you back to carrying a load. If you do not wish to taste the kiboko, you can take a load to-morrow.”
“The kiboko, bwana,” pleaded Fundi, very abashed and humble.
“Furthermore,” we added crushingly, “you did not even hit the rhinoceros!”
So with all ceremony he got the kiboko. The incident did him a lot of good, and toned down his exuberance somewhat. Nevertheless he still required a good deal of training, just as does a promising bird dog in its first season. Generally his faults were of over-eagerness. Indeed, once he got me thoroughly angry in face of another rhinoceros by dancing just out of reach with the heavy rifle, instead of sticking close to me where I could get at him. I temporarily forgot the rhino, and advanced on Fundi with the full intention of knocking his fool head off. Whereupon this six feet something of most superb and insolent pride wilted down to a small boy with his elbow before his face.
“Don't hit, bwana! Don't hit!” he begged.
The whole thing was so comical, especially with Memba Sasa standing by virtuous and scornful, that I had hard work to keep from laughing. Fortunately the rhinoceros behaved himself.
The proud moment of Fundi's life was when safari entered Nairobi at the end of the first expedition. He had gone forth with a load on his head, rags on his back, and his only glory was the self-assumed one of the name he had taken-Fundi, the Expert. He returned carrying a rifle, rigged from top to toe in new garments and fancy accoutrements, followed by a toro, or small boy, he had bought from some of the savage tribes to carry his blanket and cooking pot for him. To the friends who darted out to the line of march, he was gracious, but he held his head high, and had no time for mere persiflage.
I did not take Fundi on my second expedition, for I had no real use for a second gunbearer. Several times subsequently I saw him on the streets of Nairobi. Always he came up to greet me, and ask solicitously if I would not give him a job. This I was unable to do. When we paid off, I had made an addition to his porter's wages, and had written him a chit. This said that the boy had the makings of a gunbearer with further training. It would have been unfair to possible white employers to have said more. Fundi was, when I left the country, precisely in the position of any young man who tries to rise in the world. He would not again take a load as porter, and he was not yet skilled enough or known enough to pick up more than stray jobs as gunbearer. Before him was struggle and hard times, with a certainty of a highly considered profession if he won through. Behind him was steady work without outlets for ambition. It was distinctly up to him to prove whether he had done well to reach for ambition, or whether he would have done better in contentment with his old lot. And that is in essence a good deal like our own world isn't it?
Up to this time, save for a few Masai at the very beginning of our trip, we had seen no natives at all. Only lately, the night of the lion dance, one of the Wanderobo-the forest hunters-had drifted in to tell us of buffalo and to get some meat. He was a simple soul, small and capable, of a beautiful red-brown, with his hair done up in a tight, short queue. He wore three skewers about six inches long thrust through each of his ears, three strings of blue beads on his neck, a bracelet tight around his upper arm, a bangle around his ankle, a pair of rawhide sandals, and about a half yard of cotton cloth which he hung from one shoulder. As weapons he carried a round-headed, heavy club, or runga, and a long-bladed spear. He led us to buffalo, accepted a thirty-three cent blanket, and made fire with two sticks in about thirty seconds. The only other evidences of human life we had come across were a few beehives suspended in the trees. These were logs, bored hollow and stopped at either end. Some of them were very quaintly carved. They hung in the trees like strange fruits.
Now, however, after leaving the Isiola, we were to quit the game country and for days travel among the swarming millions of the jungle.
A few preliminary and entirely random observations may be permitted me by way of clearing the ground for a conception of these people. These observations do not pretend to be ethnological, nor even common logical.
The first thing for an American to realize is that our own negro population came mainly from the West Coast, and differed utterly from these peoples of the highlands in the East. Therefore one must first of all get rid of the mental image of our own negro “dressed up” in savage garb. Many of these tribes are not negro at all-the Somalis, the Nandi, and the Masai, for example-while others belong to the negroid and Nilotic races. Their colour is general cast more on the red-bronze than the black, though the Kavirondos and some others are black enough. The texture of their skin is very satiny and wonderful. This perfection is probably due to the constant anointing of the body with oils of various sorts. As a usual thing they are a fine lot physically. The southern Masai will average between six and seven feet in height, and are almost invariably well built. Of most tribes the physical development is remarkably strong and graceful; and a great many of the women will display a rounded, firm, high-breasted physique in marked contrast to the blacks of the lowlands. Of the different tribes possibly the Kikuyus are apt to count the most weakly and spindly examples: though some of these people, perhaps a majority, are well made.
Furthermore, the native differentiates himself still further in impression from our negro in his carriage and the mental attitude that lies behind it. Our people are trying to pattern themselves on white men, and succeed in giving a more or less shambling imitation thereof. The native has standards, ideas, and ideals that perfectly satisfy him, and that antedated the white man's coming by thousands of years. The consciousness of this reflects itself in his outward bearing. He does not shuffle; he is not either obsequious or impudent. Even when he acknowledges the white man's divinity and pays it appropriate respect, he does not lose the poise of his own well-worked-out attitude toward life and toward himself.
We are fond of calling these people primitive. In the world's standard of measurement they are primitive, very primitive indeed. But ordinarily by that term, we mean also undeveloped, embryonic. In that sense we are wrong. Instead of being at the very dawn of human development, these people are at the end-as far as they themselves are concerned. The original racial impulse that started them down the years toward development has fulfilled its duty and spent its force. They have worked out all their problems, established all their customs, arranged the world and its phenomena in a philosophy to their complete satisfaction. They have lived, ethnologists tell us, for thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, just as we find them to-day. From our standpoint that is in a hopeless intellectual darkness, for they know absolutely nothing of the most elementary subjects of knowledge. From their standpoint, however, they have reached the highest DESIRABLE pinnacle of human development. Nothing remains to be changed. Their customs, religions, and duties have been worked out and immutably established long ago; and nobody dreams of questioning either their wisdom or their imperative necessity. They are the conservatives of the world.
Nor must we conclude-looking at them with the eyes of our own civilization-that the savage is, from his standpoint, lazy and idle. His life is laid out more rigidly than ours will be for a great many thousands of years. From childhood to old age he performs his every act in accord with prohibitions and requirements. He must remember them all; for ignorance does not divert consequences. He must observe them all; in pain of terrible punishments. For example, never may he cultivate on the site of a grave; and the plants that spring up from it must never be cut.* He must make certain complicated offerings before venturing to harvest a crop. On crossing the first stream of a journey he must touch his lips with the end of his wetted bow, wade across, drop a stone on the far side, and then drink. If he cuts his nails, he must throw the parings into a thicket. If he drink from a stream, and also cross it, he must eject a mouthful of water back into the stream. He must be particularly careful not to look his mother-in-law in the face. Hundreds of omens by the manner of their happening may modify actions, as, on what side of the road a woodpecker calls, or in which direction a hyena or jackal crosses the path, how the ground hornbill flies or alights, and the like. He must notice these things, and change his plans according to their occurrence. If he does not notice them, they exercise their influence just the same. This does not encourage a distrait mental attitude. Also it goes far to explain otherwise unexplainable visitations. Truly, as Hobley says in his unexcelled work on the A-Kamba, “the life of a savage native is a complex matter, and he is hedged round by all sorts of rules and prohibitions, the infringement of which will probably cause his death, if only by the intense belief he has in the rules which guide his life.”
* Customs are not universal among the different tribes. I ammerely illustrating.
For these rules and customs he never attempts to give a reason. They are; and that is all there is to it. A mere statement: “This is the custom” settles the matter finally. There is no necessity, nor passing thought even, of finding any logical cause. The matter was worked out in the mental evolution of remote ancestors. At that time, perhaps, insurgent and Standpatter, Conservative and Radical fought out the questions of the day, and the Muckrakers swung by their tails and chattered about it. Those days are all long since over. The questions of the world are settled forever. The people have passed through the struggles of their formative period to the ultimate highest perfection of adjustment to material and spiritual environment of which they were capable under the influence of their original racial force.
Parenthetically, it is now a question whether or not an added impulse can be communicated from without. Such an impulse must (a) unsettle all the old beliefs, (b) inspire an era of skepticism, (c) reintroduce the old struggle of ideas between the Insurgent and the Standpatter, and Radical and the Conservative, (d) in the meantime furnish, from the older civilization, materials, both in the thought-world and in the object-world, for building slowly a new set of customs more closely approximating those we are building for ourselves. This is a longer and slower and more complicated affair than teaching the native to wear clothes and sing hymns; or to build houses and drink gin; but it is what must be accomplished step by step before the African peoples are really civilized. I, personally, do not think it can be done.
Now having, a hundred thousand years or so ago, worked out the highest good of the human race, according to them, what must they say to themselves and what must their attitude be when the white man has come and has unrolled his carpet of wonderful tricks? The dilemma is evident. Either we, as black men, must admit that our hundred-thousand-year-old ideas as to what constitutes the highest type of human relation to environment is all wrong, or else we must evolve a new attitude toward this new phenomena. It is human nature to do the latter. Therefore the native has not abandoned his old gods; nor has he adopted a new. He still believes firmly that his way is the best way of doing things, but he acknowledges the Superman.
To the Superman, with all races, anything is possible. Only our Superman is an idea, and ideal. The native has his Superman before him in the actual flesh.
We will suppose that our own Superman has appeared among us, accomplishing things that apparently contravene all our established tenets of skill, of intellect, of possibility. It will be readily acknowledged that such an individual would at first create some astonishment. He wanders into a crowded hotel lobby, let us say, evidently with the desire of going to the bar. Instead of pushing laboriously through the crowd, he floats just above their heads, gets his drink, and floats out again! That is levitation, and is probably just as simple to him as striking a match is to you and me. After we get thoroughly accustomed to him and his life, we are no longer vastly astonished, though always interested, at the various manifestations of his extraordinary powers. We go right along using the marvellous wireless, aeroplanes, motor cars, constructive machinery, and the like that make us confident-justly, of course-in that we are about the smartest lot of people on earth. And if we see red, white, and blue streamers of light crossing the zenith at noon, we do not manifest any very profound amazement. “There's that confounded Superman again,” we mutter, if we happen to be busy. “I wonder what stunt he's going to do now!”
A consideration of the above beautiful fable may go a little way toward explaining the supposed native stolidity in the face of the white man's wonders. A few years ago some misguided person brought a balloon to Nairobi. The balloon interested the white people a lot, but everybody was chiefly occupied wondering what the natives would do when they saw THAT! The natives did not do anything. They gathered in large numbers, and most interestedly watched it go up, and then went home again. But they were not stricken with wonder to any great extent. So also with locomotives, motor cars, telephones, phonographs-any of our modern ingenuities. The native is pleased and entertained, but not astonished. “Stupid creature, no imagination,” say we, because our pride in showing off is a wee bit hurt.
Why should he be astonished? His mental revolution took place when he saw the first match struck. It is manifestly impossible for any one to make fire instantaneously by rubbing one small stick. When for the first time he saw it done, he was indeed vastly astounded. The immutable had been changed. The law had been transcended. The impossible had been accomplished. And then, as logical sequence, his mind completed the syllogism. If the white man can do this impossibility, why not all the rest? To defy the laws of nature by flying in the air or forcing great masses of iron to transport one, is no more wonderful than to defy them by striking a light. Since the white man can provedly do one, what earthly reason exists why he should not do anything else that hits his fancy? There is nothing to get astonished at.
This does not necessarily mean that the native looks on the white man as a god. On the contrary, your African is very shrewd in the reading of character. But indubitably white men possess great magic, uncertain in its extent.
That is as far as I should care to go, without much deeper acquaintance, into the attitude of the native mind toward the whites. A superficial study of it, beyond the general principals I have enunciated, discloses many strange contradictions. The native respects the white man's warlike skill, he respects his physical prowess, he certainly acknowledges tacitly his moral superiority in the right to command. In case of dispute he likes the white man's adjudication; in case of illness the man's medicine; in case of trouble the white man's sustaining hand. Yet he almost never attempts to copy the white man's appearance or ways of doing things. His own savage customs and habits he fulfils with as much pride as ever in their eternal fitness. Once I was badgering Memba Sasa, asking him whether he thought the white skin or the black skin the more ornamental. “You are not white,” he retorted at last. “That,” pointing to a leaf of my notebook, “is white. You are red. I do not like the looks of red people.”
They call our speech the “snake language,” because of its hissing sound. Once this is brought to your attention, indeed, you cannot help noticing the superabundance of the sibilants.
A queer melange the pigeonholes of an African's brain must contain-fear and respect, strongly mingled with clear estimate of intrinsic character of individuals and a satisfaction with his own standards.
Nor, I think, do we realize sufficiently the actual fundamental differences between the African and our peoples. Physically they must be in many ways as different from our selves as though they actually belonged to a different species. The Masai are a fine big race, enduring, well developed and efficient. They live exclusively on cow's milk mixed with blood; no meat, no fruit, no vegetables, no grain; just that and nothing more. Obviously they must differ from us most radically, or else all our dietetic theories are wrong. It is a well-known fact that any native requires a triple dose of white man's medicine. Furthermore a native's sensitiveness to pain is very much less than the white man's. This is indubitable. For example, the Wakamba file-or, rather, chip, by means of a small chisel-all their front teeth down to needle points, When these happen to fall out, the warrior substitutes an artificial tooth which he drives down into the socket. If the savage got the same effects from such a performance that a white man's dental system would arouse, even “savage stoicism” would hardly do him much good. There is nothing to be gained by multiplying examples. Every African traveller can recall a thousand.
Incidentally, and by the way, I want to add to the milk-and-blood joke on dietetics another on the physical culturists. We are all familiar with the wails over the loss of our toe nails. You know what I mean; they run somewhat like this: shoes are the curse of civilization; if we wear them much longer we shall not only lose the intended use of our feet, but we shall lose our toe nails as well; the savage man, etc., etc., etc. Now I saw a great many of said savage men in Africa, and I got much interested in their toe nails, because I soon found that our own civilized “imprisoned” toe nails were very much better developed. In fact, a large number of the free and untramelled savages have hardly any toe nails at all! Whether this upsets a theory, nullifies a sentimental protest, or merely stands as an exception, I should not dare guess. But the fact is indubitable.
(a) THE MARCH TO MERU
Now, one day we left the Isiola River and cut across on a long upward slant to the left. In a very short time we had left the plains, and were adrift in an ocean of brown grass that concealed all but the bobbing loads atop the safari, and over which we could only see when mounted. It was glorious feed, apparently, but it contained very few animals for all that. An animal could without doubt wax fat and sleek therein: but only to furnish light and salutary meals to beasts of prey. Long grass makes easy stalking. We saw a few ostriches, some giraffe, and three or four singly adventurous oryx. The ripening grasses were softer than a rippling field grain; and even more beautiful in their umber and browns. Although apparently we travelled a level, nevertheless in the extreme distance the plains of our hunting were dropping below, and the far off mountains were slowly rising above the horizon. On the other side were two very green hills, looking nearly straight up and down, and through a cleft the splintered snow-clad summit of Mt. Kenia.
At length this gentle foothill slope broke over into rougher country. Then, in the pass, we came upon many parallel beaten paths, wider and straighter than the game trails-native tracks. That night we camped in a small, round valley under some glorious trees, with green grass around us; a refreshing contrast after the desert brown. In the distance ahead stood a big hill, and at its base we could make out amid the tree-green, the straight slim smoke of many fires and the threads of many roads.
We began our next morning's march early, and we dropped over the hill into a wide, cultivated valley. Fields of grain, mostly rape, were planted irregularly among big scattered trees. The morning air, warming under the sun, was as yet still, and carried sound well. The cooing, chattering and calling of thousands of birds mingled with shouts and the clapping together of pieces of wood. As we came closer we saw that every so often scaffolds had been erected overlooking the grain, and on these scaffolds naked boys danced and yelled and worked clappers to scare the birds from the crops. They seemed to put a great deal of rigour into the job; whether from natural enthusiasm or efficient direful supervision I could not say. Certainly they must have worked in watches, however; no human being could keep up that row continuously for a single day, let alone the whole season of ripening grain. As we passed they fell silent and stared their fill.
On the banks of a boggy little stream that we had to flounder across we came on a gentleman and lady travelling. They were a tall, well formed pair, mahogany in colour, with the open, pleasant expression of most of these jungle peoples. The man wore a string around his waist into which was thrust a small leafy branch; the woman had on a beautiful skirt made by halving a banana leaf, using the stem as belt, and letting the leaf part hang down as a skirt. Shortly after meeting these people we turned sharp to the right on a well beaten road.
For nearly two weeks we were to follow this road, so it may be as well to get an idea of it. Its course was a segment of about a sixth of the circle of Kenia's foothills. With Kenia itself as a centre, this road swung among the lower elevations about the base of that great mountain. Its course was mainly down and up hundreds of the canyons radiating from the main peak, and over the ridges between them. No sooner were we down, than we had to climb up; and no sooner were we up, than once more down we had to plunge. At times, however, we crossed considerable plateaus. Most of this country was dense jungle, so dense that we could not see on either side more than fifteen or twenty feet. Occasionally, atop the ridges, however, we would come upon small open parks. In these jungles live millions of human beings.
At once, as soon as we had turned into the main road, we began to meet people. In the grain fields of the valley we saw only the elevated boys, and a few men engaged in weaving a little house perched on stilts. We came across some of these little houses all completed, with conical roofs. They were evidently used for granaries. As we mounted the slope on the other side, however, the trees closed in, and we found ourselves marching down the narrow aisle of the jungle itself.
It was a dense and beautiful jungle, with very tall trees and the deepest shade; and the impenetrable tangle to the edge of the track. Among the trees were the broad leaves of bananas and palms, the fling of leafy vines. Over the track these leaned, so that we rode through splashing and mottling shade. Nothing could have seemed wilder than this apparently impenetrable and yet we had ridden but a short distance before we realized that we were in fact passing through cultivated land. It was, again, only a difference in terms. Native cultivation in this district rarely consists of clearing land and planting crops in due order, but in leaving the forest proper as it is, and in planting foodstuffs haphazard wherever a tiny space can be made for even three hills of corn or a single banana. Thus they add to rather than subtract from the typical density of the jungle. At first, we found, it took some practice to tell a farm when we saw it.
From the track narrow little paths wound immediately out of sight. Sometimes we saw a wisp of smoke rising above the undergrowth and eddying in the tops of the trees. Long vine ropes swung from point to point, hung at intervals with such matters as feathers, bones, miniature shields, carved sticks, shells and clappers: either as magic or to keep off the birds. From either side the track we were conscious always of bright black eyes watching us. Sometimes we caught a glimpse of their owners crouched in the bush, concealed behind banana leaves, motionless and straight against a tree trunk. When they saw themselves observed they vanished without a sound.
The upper air was musical with birds, and bright with the flutter of their wings. Rarely did we see them long enough to catch a fair idea of their size and shape. They flashed from shade to shade, leaving only an impression of brilliant colour. There were some exceptions: as the widower-bird, dressed all in black, with long trailing wing-plumes of which he seemed very proud; and the various sorts of green pigeons and parrots. There were many flowering shrubs and trees, and the air was laden with perfume. Strange, too, it seemed to see tall trees with leaves three or four feet long and half as many wide.
We were riding a mile or so ahead of the safari. At first we were accompanied only by our gunbearers and syces. Before long, however, we began to accumulate a following.
This consisted at first of a very wonderful young man, probably a chief's son. He carried a long bright spear, wore a short sword thrust through a girdle, had his hair done in three wrapped queues, one over each temple and one behind, and was generally brought to a high state of polish by means of red earth and oil. About his knee he wore a little bell that jingled pleasingly at every step. From one shoulder hung a goat-skin cloak embroidered with steel beads. A small package neatly done up in leaves probably contained his lunch. He teetered along with a mincing up and down step, every movement, and the expression of his face displaying a fatuous self-satisfaction. When we looked back again this youth had magically become two. Then appeared two women and a white goat. All except the goat were dressed for visiting, with long chains of beads, bracelets and anklets, and heavy ornaments in the distended ear lobes. The manner people sprang apparently out of the ground was very disconcerting. It was a good deal like those fairy-story moving pictures where a wave of the wand produces beautiful ladies. By half an hour we had acquired a long retinue-young warriors, old men, women and innumerable children. After we had passed, the new recruits stepped quietly from the shadow of the jungle and fell in. Every one with nothing much to do evidently made up his mind he might as well go to Meru now as any other time.
Also we met a great number of people going in the other direction. Women were bearing loads of yams. Chiefs' sons minced along, their spears poised in their left hands at just the proper angle, their bangles jingling, their right hands carried raised in a most affected manner. Their social ease was remarkable, especially in contrast with the awkwardness of the lower poverty-stricken or menial castes. The latter drew one side to let us pass, and stared. Our chiefs' sons, on the other hand, stepped springingly and beamingly forward; spat carefully in their hands (we did the same); shook hands all down the line: exchanged a long-drawn “moo-o-ga!” with each of us; and departed at the same springing rapid gait. The ordinary warriors greeted us, but did not offer to shake hands, thank goodness! There were a great many of them. Across the valleys and through the open spaces the sun, as it struck down the trail, was always flashing back from distant spears. Twice we met flocks of sheep being moved from one point to another. Three or four herdsmen and innumerable small boys seemed to be in charge. Occasionally we met a real chief or headman of a village, distinguished by the fact that he or a servant carried a small wooden stool. With these dignitaries we always stopped to exchange friendly words.
These comprised the travelling public. The resident public also showed itself quite in evidence. Once our retainers had become sufficiently numerous to inspire confidence, the jungle people no longer hid. On the contrary, they came out to the very edge of the track to exchange greetings. They were very good-natured, exceedingly well-formed, and quite jocular with our boys. Especially did our suave and elegant Simba sparkle. This resident public, called from its daily labours and duties, did not always show as gaudy a make-up as did the dressed-up travelling public. Banana leaves were popular wear, and seemed to us at once pretty and fresh. To be sure some had rather withered away; but even wool will shrink. We saw some grass skirts, like the Sunday-school pictures.
At noon we stopped under a tree by a little stream for lunch. Before long a dozen women were lined up in front of us staring at Billy with all their might. She nodded and smiled at them. Thereupon they sent one of their number away. The messenger returned after a few moments carrying a bunch of the small eating bananas which she laid at our feet. Billy fished some beads out of her saddle bags, and presented them. Friendly relations having been thus fully established, two or three of the women scurried hastily away, to return a few moments later each with her small child. To these infants they carefully and earnestly pointed out Billy and her wonders, talking in a tongue unknown to us. The admonition undoubtedly ran something like this:
“Now, my child, look well at this: for when you get to be a very old person you will be able to look back at the day when with your own eyes you beheld a white woman. See all the strange things she wears-and HASN'T she a funny face?”
We offered these bung-eyed and totally naked youngsters various bribes in the way of beads, the tinfoil from chocolate, and even a small piece of the chocolate itself. Most of them howled and hid their faces against their mothers. The mothers looked scandalized, and hypocritically astounded, and mortified.
They made remarks, still in an unknown language, but which much past experience enabled me to translate very readily:
“I don't know what has got into little Willie,” was the drift of it. “I have never known him to act this way before. Why, only yesterday I was saying to his father that it really seemed as though that child NEVER cried-”
It made me feel quite friendly and at home.
Now at last came two marvellous and magnificent personages before whom the women and children drew back to a respectful distance. These potentates squatted down and smiled at us engagingly. Evidently this was a really important couple, so we called up Simba, who knew the language, and had a talk.
They were old men, straight, and very tall, with the hawk-faced, high-headed dignity of the true aristocrat. Their robes were voluminous, of some short-haired skins, beautifully embroidered. Around their arms were armlets of polished buffalo horn. They wore most elaborate ear ornaments, and long cased marquise rings extending well beyond the first joints of the fingers. Very fine old gentlemen. They were quite unarmed.
After appropriate greetings, we learned that these were the chief and his prime minister of a nearby village hidden in the jungle. We exchanged polite phrases; then offered tobacco. This was accepted. From the jungle came a youth carrying more bananas. We indicated our pleasure. The old men arose with great dignity and departed, sweeping the women and children before them.
We rode on. Our acquired retinue, which had waited at a respectful distance, went on too. I suppose they must have desired the prestige of being attached to Our Persons. In the depths of the forest Billy succumbed to the temptation to bargain, and made her first trade. Her prize was a long water gourd strapped with leather and decorated with cowry shells. Our boys were completely scandalized at the price she paid for it, so I fear the wily savage got ahead of her.
About the middle of the afternoon we sat down to wait for the safari to catch up. It would never do to cheat our boys out of their anticipated grand entrance to the Government post at Meru. We finally debouched from the forest to the great clearing at the head of a most impressive procession, flags flying, oryx horns blowing, boys chanting and beating the sides of their loads with the safari sticks. As there happened to be gathered, at this time, several thousand of warriors for the purpose of a council, or shauri, with the District Commissioner we had just the audience to delight our barbaric hearts.
(b) MERU
The Government post at Meru is situated in a clearing won from the forest on the first gentle slopes of Kenia's ranges. The clearing is a very large one, and on it the grass grows green and short, like a lawn. It resembles, as much as anything else, the rolling, beautiful downs of a first-class country club, and the illusion is enhanced by the Commissioner's house among some trees atop a hill. Well-kept roadways railed with rustic fences lead from the house to the native quarters lying in the hollow and to the Government offices atop another hill. Then also there are the quarters of the Nubian troops; round low houses with conical grass roofs.
These, and the presence everywhere of savages, rather take away from the first country-club effect. A corral seemed full of a seething mob of natives; we found later that this was the market, a place of exchange. Groups wandered idly here and there across the greensward; and other groups sat in circles under the shade of trees, each man's spear stuck in the ground behind him. At stated points were the Nubians, fine, tall, black, soldierly men, with red fez, khaki shirt, and short breeches, bare knees and feet, spiral puttees, and a broad red sash of webbing. One of these soldiers assigned us a place to camp. We directed our safari there, and then immediately rode over to pay our respects to the Commissioner.
The latter, Horne by name, greeted us with the utmost cordiality, and offered us cool drinks. Then we accompanied him to a grand shauri or council of chiefs.
Horne was a little chap, dressed in flannels and a big slouch hat, carrying only a light rawhide whip, with very little of the dignity and “side” usually considered necessary in dealing with wild natives. The post at Meru had been established only two years, among a people that had always been very difficult, and had only recently ceased open hostilities. Nevertheless in that length of time Horne's personal influence had won them over to positive friendliness. He had, moreover, done the entire construction work of the post itself; and this we now saw to be even more elaborate than we had at first realized. Irrigating ditches ran in all directions brimming with clear mountain water; the roads and paths were rounded, graded and gravelled; the houses were substantial, well built and well kept; fences, except of course the rustic, were whitewashed; the native quarters and “barracks” were well ranged and in perfect order. The place looked ten years old instead of only two.
We followed Horne to an enclosure, outside the gate of which were stacked a great number of spears. Inside we found the owners of those spears squatted before the open side of a small, three-walled building containing a table and a chair. Horne placed himself in the chair, lounged back, and hit the table smartly with his rawhide whip. From the centre of the throng an old man got up and made quite a long speech. When he had finished another did likewise. All was carried out with the greatest decorum. After four or five had thus spoken, Horne, without altering his lounging attitude, spoke twenty or thirty words, rapped again on the table with his rawhide whip, and immediately came over to us.
“Now,” said he cheerfully, “we'll have a game of golf.”
That was amusing, but not astonishing. Most of us have at one time or another laid out a scratch hole or so somewhere in the vacant lot. We returned to the house, Horne produced a sufficiency of clubs, and we sallied forth. Then came the surprise of our life! We played eighteen holes-eighteen, mind you-over an excellently laid-out and kept-up course! The fair greens were cropped short and smooth by a well-managed small herd of sheep; the putting greens were rolled, and in perfect order; bunkers had been located at the correct distances; there were water hazards in the proper spots. In short, it was a genuine, scientific, well-kept golf course. Over it played Horne, solitary except on the rare occasions when he and his assistant happened to be at the post at the same time. The nearest white man was six days' journey; the nearest small civilization 196 miles.* The whole affair was most astounding.