my control over the whole country now complete—get back with my ivory to karuri’s—recover all the property of the murdered goanese—my position recognized by all the chiefs—violent death of my enemy, the rain-maker—peaceful rule—try to improve the agriculture of the country—imitators of my schemes cause trouble in the country—troubles of a ruler—outbreak of smallpox—famine—my attempts at alleviating the distress misunderstood—daily routine in a native village—"sin vomiting"—native customs—native hospitality among themselves—adventures with lions

the trouble being thus settled, i got my ivory through to headquarters, being met on the road by karuri, bringing a force to my assistance, my messengers having acquainted him with the state of affairs. from this time on i had complete control of the country; everything that had been stolen from the goanese was given up, while their murderers had received such punishment as they were not likely to forget in a generation.

when matters had quieted down again, and i had time to review the situation, i took the first opportunity of sending messengers through to

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the government, with a full report of the recent occurrences; while i also communicated with the relatives of the murdered goanese, two brothers who, i heard, were living at nairobi, sending through to them the whole of the stolen property which i had recovered. i found out later that, through some misunderstanding or other, the heads of the murdered men—which had been found after the fighting was over—had likewise been sent in to nairobi; which, while serving as proof to the officials that the reports i had been sending in from time to time as to the character of the natives were not without foundation, was a most regrettable occurrence, and must, i fear, have given much pain to the relatives.

the fighting being now over, and the chinga people—such as remained of them—having given assurances of their desire and intention to live at peace with their neighbours, the country now settled down into a condition of quietness such as had never been known before. my mission through the country had served to produce a spirit of friendship between the different clans and tribes which effectually put an end to the petty quarrelling and constant fighting which had hitherto gone on; and from this time i was looked upon as practically the king of the country, all matters in dispute being referred to my judgment, and i was constantly being

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called upon to give counsel and advice upon every conceivable subject which affected the welfare of the people. the three most powerful chiefs in the country—karuri, karkerrie, and wagombi—acknowledged me as their leader, and chiefs and people were now entirely under my control. as proof of the altered condition of the country, i could now send messengers to any one of the chiefs or headmen without any fear of their being attacked or molested on the way.

the reader will remember that i have several times mentioned an individual who was known as the chief rain-maker, a man who was by no means well disposed towards me, on account of the fact that my influence in the country greatly weakened his position. he went out of his way, on every possible occasion, to cause me as much trouble and annoyance as he could; while, in connexion with this chinga trouble, i found that my suspicions as to his having had a large share in the matter were perfectly correct. in fact, he had engineered the whole business, both with regard to the murder of the goanese traders and the subsequent attack on my safari, the former being really a sort of preliminary to the latter, intended to convince the natives that it was quite possible, as well as profitable, to attack and murder a white man, as he carefully explained to the people that the goanese were white men, and of the same kind as myself.

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this attempt having failed, like all his other efforts to remove me, he was not content to accept defeat and let the matter rest, but continued to scheme for my removal until his persistence was the ultimate cause of his own death, which occurred in the following manner.

some time after the chinga business, reports were brought in to my headquarters at karuri’s of serious tribal fighting and raiding in a district some twenty miles to the east of karuri’s, and after a council of the principal men had been held, it was decided that a force should be sent to reduce the offenders to order. consequently i set out with karuri, and about a thousand warriors, for the scene of the disturbance. soon after we had passed the boundary of the disturbed district, which lay partly in the chief rain-maker’s territory—for he was a tribal chief, as well as the principal rain-maker—he came out to meet us, with every sign of friendliness, and said that he had brought some of his people to help us to put matters right. being fully occupied with the matter in hand, and quite ready to welcome any friendly advances from my old enemy, i met him in the same spirit, and told him to let his following of some three hundred warriors fall in with the rest of the expedition, and we continued our march. all went well until we reached the first of the offending villages, where we met with strong opposition, and had to

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advance our force in extended order to attack the enemy. the order to advance had just been given, and the force were crossing the brow of the hill which stood between them and the enemy, karuri and myself, together with some of the principal headmen, following them more leisurely up the hill, when i suddenly heard a shot fired immediately behind me, and, turning round, saw the chief rain-maker lying on the ground, while one of the four askaris who formed my personal escort was just reloading his rifle. on my asking what had happened, i was told by karuri and the askari that the chief rain-maker had posted an ambush of men with poisoned arrows in the bush near, and was just signalling them to shoot me down from behind, when my escort caught him in the act and fired. going over to where he lay, i found that nothing could be done for him, as the heavy snider bullet had gone through his sword—which these people wear rather high up on the right side—and entered his body just above the hip, so that the case was hopeless from the first, as he himself recognized. when i spoke to him he made no complaint about his fate, but begged that five blankets which i had given him at various times might be brought, and that he might be wrapped up in them and buried, instead of being thrown into the bush for the hyenas to eat, as was the usual kikuyu custom. having received my assurance that his last wish

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should be carried out, he died, without saying anything further. although the man had undoubtedly brought his fate on himself by his treachery, i very much regretted his death, as i thought we were getting on better terms, and he was one of the finest specimens of the intelligent savage—physically as well as mentally—that i have known. had he been content to run straight and work with me for the good of his people, he would have been able to do a great deal for them.

but we had little time to spare for regrets, for although his death took a great deal of the heart out of his people who had been set to ambush us, they still attempted to carry out his plan to wipe us all out, and as our followers were by this time well over the brow of the hill, we had as much as we could do to hold our own. i managed, however, to get a couple of messengers through the warriors surrounding us, to summon some of our men back to our help. on the arrival of reinforcements, those of the rain-maker’s people who were not prepared to give up their weapons and surrender cleared off as rapidly as possible.

strangely enough, in the course of the same day’s operations i was able to do my old friend karuri a good turn by saving the life of his eldest son, a boy of about eighteen, named cachukia, who had only recently attained to

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warrior rank, and was out on his first expedition. we were returning from the reduction of a village where we had met with considerable resistance, and lost rather heavily, when i noticed that cachukia was not with us, and on inquiring what had become of him, i was told that he had been killed in the final assault on the village. not wishing to take any chance of the boy having been simply badly wounded and left to bleed to death, i took a few men with me and made my way back to the scene of the fight, where i found the unfortunate youngster still living, but very seriously hurt, having two bad spear wounds in the chest, both of which had penetrated the lung. although the case seemed pretty hopeless, i could not leave him there to bleed to death, so getting the men to make a stretcher with a blanket and a couple of young saplings, i had him carried back to his father’s place, where he gradually recovered, and to-day he is as strong and healthy a man as any in the tribe, of which he should be the chief on his father’s death.

it may be worth while mentioning that the man who shot the chief rain-maker was so overwhelmed with what he had done, and the possible consequences to himself if he remained anywhere in the neighbourhood of the late lamented’s district, or even where his people could easily get at him, that he cleared out of

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that part of the country altogether, and no one knew where he had gone. i met him some years afterwards on the road in the neighbourhood of naivasha, when he recalled the incident to my memory, telling me that he had never ventured to go back to his own district.

soon after my return to headquarters i organized a big safari to take the food and ivory i had collected down to naivasha, and on this journey i took about a thousand loads of food into the government station, which they were very pleased to get. i was told that i could take in as much food as i could possibly collect, as some of the flour was required for the other government stations up-country, where their supply of food had fallen off locally.

during my absence an indian store had been opened in naivasha, and having sold my food and ivory, i was able to buy everything that i required for trading at this store, and among the other things i purchased to take back with me were a lot of seeds, including some of the black wattle.

wa-kikuyu women pounding grain for making native drink

returning to my home in the mountains, i settled down at karuri’s with a prospect of calmer days before me than i had experienced during the previous twelve months, during which i had been getting the country under control, and now i had time to set about improving the country itself, and got the natives to work making better

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roads and building bridges across the rivers, and generally increasing the facilities for getting about the country. i also made a very large garden close to my camp, in which i planted the seeds which i had bought at naivasha, and had the satisfaction of finding that almost every english vegetable would grow well in that climate, while the black wattle i had planted also flourished splendidly, and has, i believe, at the present day grown into quite a little forest.

with the opening up of the country by the railway, new difficulties arose. my own success in the country induced many traders, somali, arab, and swahili, to try their fortunes with the natives, and so long as they stuck to legitimate trading, all went well, but they adopted methods which soon created a strong feeling of discontent throughout the country. in many cases these traders, who had very little in the way of trade goods, represented themselves as working for karanjai—which was the native name by which i was known—and instead of doing any trading, billeted themselves on the natives, making them keep them, and would often even steal the sheep and other belongings of the kikuyu. the natives repeatedly complained to me of the misbehaviour of these so-called traders, and when i told them that they were not my people, and that i had nothing to do with them, the natives sometimes retaliated on these men who were thus robbing

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them. wandering swahili, and the other rascals of their kind, came complaining to me. i told them that if they could not get on with the natives the best thing for them to do was to leave the country.

matters went on in this way for some time, incidents of the kind becoming more and more frequent, until the whole country was in a state of unrest, and as i was continually travelling about the country from one chief to another, i was always hearing of them, and on one of these journeys, i had personal proof of the imposition and robbery that was being practised on the natives by these scoundrels. i happened to be in the neighbourhood of mount kenia—where it was still necessary to have a fair number of rifles to go about in safety—and two or three of these somali traders, who had not guns enough to venture alone, had been following me on the journey, about a day’s march behind. it appeared that at the last village at which they had stopped they had driven away about sixty sheep from the native kraal, and had afterwards sat down quietly to trade these sheep off for ivory in my camp. as soon as the case was brought to my notice, i at once ordered them to return the sheep, and told them that the best thing they could do was to get out of the country at once, as they could not count on my assistance if the natives attacked them. it came to my

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knowledge that they had made their way down to nairobi and there spread reports about my killing natives and taking their sheep away from them. the officials were practically ignorant of what was going on, and i knew that the reports of men being killed and things of that sort would be believed by them, in all probability—especially as i was a white man and the reports were brought by natives. this meant trouble for me both ways, as unless i got rid of these men they disturbed the peace of the whole country; while if i did so they carried misleading reports to the government—always ready to believe anything to the disadvantage of a white trader—and so, between the natives, the traders, and the government, my position was no sinecure.

it was about this time that the smallpox broke out in the country, and for the time being all my other troubles were relegated to the background, in the face of the necessity for adequately dealing with this awful plague. we were having a shauri, when i noticed in the crowd an elderly man, a stranger to that part of the country, and a single glance was sufficient to show me that he was suffering from smallpox. i explained to the natives the significance of my discovery, and told them that if he were allowed to mix with them they would certainly get the smallpox and die. they immediately stood away from him and said that i ought to shoot

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him, which to their savage mind was the most natural precaution to prevent the disease spreading. i explained to them that such a course was impossible, though in view of the subsequent events, the forfeiture of this man’s life at that time would have meant the saving of thousands of lives which were lost in the epidemic of which he was the cause. i told the natives what they ought to do to avoid the infection, and arranged for an isolation camp to be built in which the man was placed, telling some of the people who lived near by to leave food for him at a respectful distance, so that he could fetch it for himself until he got better, and also instructed them to see that he did not, on any account, leave the camp. some days later i was travelling through the country when i again saw the man in the crowd, and in great alarm sent some of my own men back to the isolation camp with him. but it was too late. the disease had already spread to others, and i saw a lot of bad cases among the people, and though i tried to get them all into isolation camps, it was practically no use. when an outbreak occurred in a family they would not report it, but continued to live and sleep together in the same hut, with the result that, in most cases, the whole family took the disease and died. i sent into naivasha for some lymph and started vaccinating the people. they took the matter in the proper light, and raised

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no objection, so that i was able to vaccinate thousands of them, which must, undoubtedly, have been the means of saving many lives; but in spite of all i could do, thousands died, many whole villages being wiped out.

one rather remarkable thing about this epidemic was that karuri’s village escaped entirely, not a single case occurring among the inhabitants, which karuri claimed to be due to certain precautions he took to ward off the evil. he got some sticks and split them down the middle, and then poured some black powder in the opening, afterwards pegging the sticks down across all the footpaths leading to the village. it did not keep people from coming in, and i could not see in what way the sticks could do any good, but karuri had great faith in their virtues, and as no case of smallpox occurred in the village he took the credit for keeping it away.

karuri told me that one of the reasons of the respect with which he was regarded by his people was that he possessed a most wonderful poison. if any one even looked at this poison it caused certain death. the secret of this drug, he told me, had been handed down and preserved in his family for two or three generations. the poison itself was kept buried in the bush, one of the tribe being specially told off to guard it and dig up the package when it was required

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for use; but i could never learn anything about the way in which it was used, and was very much inclined to believe that the whole thing was a legend, of which the old man made use to strengthen his influence among the people. i certainly believe that there was some box or package buried in the bush and carefully guarded, but whether it actually contained poison or anything else i question whether karuri himself could have told any one. the old man was always very anxious to possess samples of the poisons contained in my medicine-chest, but although i gave him many medicines of various kinds, i always refused to part with any of the poisons, as it is not improbable that he might have taken an opportunity of testing my immunity with some of them.

while on this subject, some account of the native practice of protecting their shambas, or rather the crops growing in them, from thieves may be of interest. of course this was done by playing on the superstitious fears of the savage, the usual method being to hang some article, such as an old earthenware cooking-pot, an old broken calabash, or best of all, the cast-off earthenware nozzles of smith’s bellows, on a bush or tree near the edge of the cultivated patch, and any one pilfering in face of this warning to trespassers was supposed to fall sick,

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or even die, as the result of his temerity. a similar practice prevails on the west coast, where a stick with a piece of cloth tied to it, or inserted in a cleft at the top, may often be seen in the cassava patch; and it is supposed that any one violating the protection which this ju-ju is supposed to afford, will, at the least, suffer the loss of some portion of his body, which will rot away and drop off.

the old saying that “it never rains but it pours” was abundantly verified in our case, only in a contrary sense to the literal meaning of the proverb. the failure of the rains in two successive seasons—which was attributed to the white man having brought the railway into the country—brought about a famine, which still further depleted the population. the country around karuri’s, being mountainous, was not affected so much as the part to the east of us, on the caravan road, and more towards the coast. at our high elevation, surrounded by the watersheds of mount kenia and the aberdare range, we could always rely on a fair amount of rain, though we had had much less than usual during these two seasons. the general famine in the country affected me, inasmuch as the food which i was there to buy found its way out on the borders of the country, and consequently my supplies were cut off. having occasion to go down to nairobi about this time, i saw hundreds

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of poor wretches dead or dying on the road, while some of my men heard gruesome tales of men killing and eating each other in their desperation at the lack of food. no case of this kind came under my personal notice, but i have seen the natives sitting down and boiling the skins which they wore as clothing in the effort to soften them sufficiently to enable them to be eaten.

numbers of the starving people, when they heard that food was to be got in the part of the country from which i came, started out to try to get there, but were robbed and killed on the way by the kalyera people. it sounds rather paradoxical speaking of starving people being robbed, but the statement is, nevertheless, perfectly correct; as, before starting out, these poor vagrants collected all their household goods and took them along with them, in the hope of exchanging them for food. a few, indeed, had sheep and a few head of cattle with them. thousands of these people would start off together, and being weak and exhausted with hunger, they fell an easy prey to the kalyera.

the natives begged me to take them out to karuri’s, and pitying their miserable condition, i agreed to do so, and got together a caravan of several thousands of the starving wretches, among whom were a number of natives who possessed a fair quantity of sheep—perhaps one

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man would have thirty sheep, and another five or six head of cattle, while, of course, there were numbers of others who had absolutely nothing. it was pitiable to see these people staggering along, first one and then another dropping out to die on the road. before starting out i made it perfectly plain to them that i would only lead them to the “land of promise” on condition that they placed themselves absolutely under my control and obeyed my orders in everything, and this they promised to do. when i saw them staggering along, almost too weak to drag one foot before the other, and dying at the rate of about fifty per day, i ordered those who had cattle and sheep to deliver them up to me, and each night when we got into camp, i had as many killed as were required to give them just enough food to keep them alive. niggers have absolutely no feelings of humanity, and the owners of the sheep and cattle grumbled loudly at my action in feeding the others with their property, which they charged me with stealing. i felt perfectly justified, however, in the course i was adopting, although i was pretty certain at the time that these people would some day do their best to make trouble for me, by misrepresenting the facts to the government officials, who, while always ready to accept any statements against myself, were much less inclined to take the responsibility for their own laxity in the performance

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of their duty. i never ate any of the meat myself, nor did i allow any of my men to do so, so that it could not be said that i had any personal benefit from my action.

as i anticipated, when i took the sheep one or two of the natives deserted from the caravan and went back to the government station to report that i had been looting their sheep. after much difficulty i got the people through to the kikuyu country, and distributed them to the different villages, giving them plainly to understand that they must behave themselves.

not being able at this time to buy any more food, i went about among the natives and started improving my own camp, cultivating the land, making roads, &c. on my visits to different parts of the country i talked with the chiefs and took general note of what was going on, and at the same time bought any ivory that i heard of. eventually it was brought to my notice that the people i had billeted on the different villages when they were starving, being now healthy and well fed, were bullying and domineering over the natives who had helped them in their time of misfortune. these people i had brought in had previously lived on the edge of the country, in touch with the white man and his civilization, consequently they had different notions and ideas from those amongst whom they had come to live, who had not, as yet, come in contact with any

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white man except myself. they declined to acknowledge my authority, and endeavoured to assert their power over the natives by taking charge of the villages, and, in some cases, stealing their sheep and interfering with their womenfolk. this led to all kinds of trouble, and the people naturally became anxious to get rid of their unwelcome guests, and they came to me saying that, as i had brought them in, and they were now all right, they ought to leave the country. i explained this to the intruders, but they absolutely refused to go. amongst the number were some swahili, who would settle down in a village for a twelvemonth, simply loafing about and living on the natives; and though they called themselves traders, they were really deserters from some caravans. there were also many who were wanted at the coast for different offences, and had somehow or other managed to get mixed up with the famine-stricken people. they knew that i was not a government official, and as they refused to obey my orders i could not get rid of them. this gave rise to a lot of quarrelling, and a number of people were killed on both sides; so that i could see that the only thing for the peace of the country was to get rid of this bad element at all costs. i therefore gave them three days’ notice to quit, informing them that if they were found in the country at the end of that time i would not be

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responsible for anything that happened to them. they took no notice of my warning, and at the end of the three days the people took matters into their own hands, and drove them out of the country, when, although there was no really serious fighting, some of them got killed and several were wounded. the evicted ones, as i expected that they would, went straight to the officials and complained that i had robbed them of their sheep and driven them out of the country. i was first informed of this by a letter from mr. gilkinson, the government official at nairobi, and at once sent karuri and some of the other chiefs into nairobi to explain the true facts of the case, thinking that a personal interview between the official and the natives would be much more effective than any statement that i, a white man, could make. this idea was apparently correct, as the explanation which they gave proved quite satisfactory—at least, this was the impression which was conveyed to me by the report which they made to me on their return.

the country having been rid of the disturbing element of these alien rogues, i now settled down once more to a peaceful mode of life, going from village to village buying food, and sending in supplies at more regular intervals to naivasha, where they were very badly needed. there was no further difficulty in finding porters, and a safari of from five hundred to one thousand men

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went down to the government station regularly about once every month to take in the food.

some account of the ordinary routine of my daily life among these people may prove of interest to the general reader. everybody turned out, as a rule, about six a.m., and while i had my morning cup of tea and biscuits, or possibly a dish of porridge made from mawhali or umkanori flour, with fresh milk, the men turned out and cleaned up the camp thoroughly. this over, the men were formed up for a couple of hours’ drill and rifle exercise—a training which every man, whether one of the askaris or not, had to go through, so that, in the event of my losing a few askaris, i always had trained men ready to take their places. at first, of course, i had to undertake this daily drill myself, but after a time the native sergeant and corporal became proficient enough to relieve me of everything but superintendence of the parade. drill was over about ten o’clock, and then i held a court for the trial of any serious cases of crime, or met the chiefs and elders in consultation with regard to measures for the general welfare of the people. by the time this was over it was time for lunch, which was my first real meal of the day, and generally consisted of a dish of mutton—and the native mutton is some of the best in the world. this was sometimes varied by european tinned provisions, of which i always

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kept a fairly good stock at my headquarters. the afternoon was spent in overseeing the work of the men in my shamba, attending to the repair or rebuilding of any of the huts that were in need of attention, or carrying out improvements in the camp—unless any of the chiefs had come in to see me, in which case the afternoon would be given up to interviewing them. dinner was served about seven o’clock, in european style, as i had been fortunate enough to get a really good swahili cook, who could turn out a most appetising meal at very short notice. of course, i had to dine in solitary state, being the only white man in the country, and about eight or nine o’clock i would turn in for the night. this, of course, was the day’s programme at headquarters, though when out on safari i made a point of following the same routine, as far as the circumstances allowed. one day in each week i had a big dance at my place; and this day was practically a holiday, the dance taking precedence of all ordinary work.

the daily life of a chief in times of peace does not present much variety, and the following account of a day out of the life of my friend karuri is a fair sample. he was not quite such an early riser as myself, usually putting in an appearance to count his cattle and other stock when they were let out to graze, which, owing to the fogs and damp generally prevailing at that elevation

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in the early morning, was not generally done until about eight o’clock. there was no regular morning meal among these people, who were in the habit of indulging in a sweet potato or a few bananas whenever they felt hungry. having finished counting his stock, the greater part of the day would be spent in settling disputes and hearing minor cases, which, owing to the native love of argument, were often of interminable length. the old gentleman took no interest in the working of his shambas, which he left entirely to his wives, of whom he had some sixty or more. as the hearing of the cases was accompanied by much drinking of njohi, both judge and litigants were apt to be in a somewhat foggy condition by the time the court adjourned for the day, which did not generally take place until the time for the evening meal, which, as i have mentioned, is really the only regular meal of the day for kikuyu. sometimes the cases were not even closed then, but as soon as darkness came on judge and litigants would adjourn to a hut, and continue the discussion over the sweet potatoes, until it was time for them to turn in, which they usually did about nine o’clock.

one not infrequent interruption to the ordinary routine of karuri’s day was the sacrificial meal of a sheep, in honour of their god, ngai, which took place sometimes as often as twice or thrice

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a week. whether the old chief’s fondness for roast mutton had anything to do with the frequency of his offerings i cannot say, but he certainly never seemed to neglect any opportunity which served as an excuse for one of these meals. as i was present on some of the occasions, it may be worth while to give some description of the ceremony, for which no extra preparations were made on my account, as is sometimes the case when white men are to be present at any of their functions.

at the time appointed, karuri, accompanied by any others who were to take part in the ceremony, went out into one of the “sacred groves” in the bush, taking with them a sheep, which, on arrival at the spot where the sacrifice was to take place, was killed by strangling, its throat being cut directly it was dead, and the blood caught in a calabash, and put on one side. a sort of wooden gridiron was then made, by planting four upright sticks in the ground and laying others across them, under which a fire was lighted, and the sheep, having by this time been cut up, was roasted on this. while the cooking was going on, the blood, which had been put on one side, was put into the stomach, thus making a sort of black-pudding, which was then roasted, and eaten after the meat. the meat was eaten in the abyssinian fashion, each man taking up the joint, and biting hold of as much

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as he could get into his mouth, the mouthful then being severed from the joint with his sword, and the joint passed on to his neighbour, who did the same. i managed to introduce one or two slight modifications into the manufacture of the black-puddings, by getting them to cut up some of the fat, and mix it with the blood, and boil the ingredients, instead of baking them. no women or children were ever allowed to be present on any occasion when the men were eating meat, as, like the masai, the kikuyu do not allow their women to touch meat, and therefore, to keep them out of temptation, never allow them to see the men eat it.

how much religious significance this ceremony had i should not like to say: the fact that it was always held in one of the sacred groves would seem to imply that it had some connexion with their religion, but, as there was no further ceremony than i have described, i always had a lurking suspicion that it was simply an excuse for a good meal of roast mutton, and that the groves were chosen for the meeting-place as being more likely to be secure from interruption from the women and children.

while on the subject of sheep-eating, it may be worth while to mention another of their peculiar superstitious practices, much encouraged by the medicine men, which was known by the somewhat unpleasant name of “vomiting sin.” .bn 294.png

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when a man was sick, and went to the witch doctor to be cured of his illness, he was very often told that his illness was due to the anger of god at some sin he had committed, and that, if he wished to recover, the only thing to do was for him to go through an extremely unpleasant ceremony, which i will describe. if he agreed to do so—and i do not think that the man who refused would enjoy much good health afterwards—he brought a sheep to the witch doctor, who, having killed it, wound portions of the entrails round the patient’s neck, wrists, and ankles. then, taking out the dung, he emptied it into a calabash, and mixed it with water, until it was quite liquid. taking his place opposite the patient, who squatted on the floor with his mouth open, the witch doctor took a couple of small bundles of twigs with the leaves on, and commenced beating the mixture in the bowl with them, and splashing it into the patient’s mouth until he was violently sick, when the sin was supposed to be got rid of, and the patient would go away expecting to be quite well in a short time.

on my asking one of these old frauds what became of the sheep, he explained that he would eat it himself, as if any one else ventured to touch the meat, he would die at once. when i said that i should have no objection to eating a leg, and was certain that no ill consequence

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would follow, he replied: “of course you could eat it quite safely. you are a great witch doctor like myself; but if any of these savages ate it, they would die at once!”

in the meantime, i made friends, by pigasangi, with those natives with whom i had tried, on my first journey through the country, to make arrangements for that ceremony, and who said at the time, it will be remembered, they would wait. this enabled me to open up fresh food stations, and altogether my enterprise in that direction was progressing very satisfactorily. the only people who now caused me any trouble were the kalyera, with whom i had always to be cautious when passing the borders of their country, as they were continually on the war-path, and i heard that they had lately extended their operations into close proximity to the railway, where they had been giving a lot of trouble by robbing and killing the indians engaged on its construction.

living, as i did, in close touch with the everyday life of the natives, i became well acquainted with their manners and habits of living, and i also managed to learn a good deal of their genealogy. i found that the kikuyu tribe was divided into a number of clans, or mahirriga, each of which bore a distinctive heraldic sign on their shields. the origin of these clans was wrapped in mystery, none of

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the natives with whom i discussed the question being able to tell me how they originally came into existence, or what was their real purpose. the word “clan,” as we understand it, suggests unity and combination, but this certainly was not the interpretation of the term accepted by the members of these kikuyu clans, the members of which were mixed up indiscriminately, and scattered all over the country. they all knew to which of the clans they belonged, and there the connexion seemed to end, so far as i could gather. the only similar instance of such “clans” that i can call to mind is the “clan” system which formerly existed among the red indians of north america, where men of different, and often hostile, tribes might belong to the same “clan,” the clans being known by the names of various animals, such as bear, wolf, fox, &c.

all the kikuyu worship a god called ngai, and i was given to understand that they had also another god, whom they called ngoma, though this latter appeared to correspond more to our idea of the devil; for example, when a native went into a fit of hysterics at one of their war-dances, as i have previously stated was frequently the case, they said that it was ngoma who had entered into him and caused it.

i noticed, in various parts of the country, quite a number of large trees which had been left

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standing alone, and which i took to have been left as landmarks when the ground had been cleared for cultivation. they were usually to be found on the top of a hill, and stood out prominently in the landscape. i found on inquiry, however, that these trees were looked upon as sacred, and had some religious or superstitious significance. the natives had many other curious beliefs and practices, and had many ways of seeking the favour of their god ngai. some of the chiefs, when things did not go right, were in the habit of killing a sheep, which they then took into the bush, and left there as a sacrifice to ngai; and when a sheep had been sacrificed in this way, none of the natives would go near it, for fear of offending the god. when i remarked that ngai did not eat, and therefore did not require food, they replied, “oh, yes, in the morning everything is gone.” i took the trouble to find out what became of the sheep, and, as i expected, saw that the hyenas came during the night and ate it; and, to prove this, i shot a hyena one night while in the act of devouring the sacrificial sheep. but when i told them that this was the ngai for whose benefit they were making these sacrifices, it did not alter their belief. some of them told me that ngai lived on the top of mount kenia; but others said that his habitation was on a mountain in the kedong valley, not far from lake naivasha.

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this mountain, on the summit of which is the crater of an extinct volcano, called longanot, is known by the name of kilemongai, which means “the mountain of god”; and it was said by the natives that any one going up this mountain would never come down again, as they were bound to die up there. this piece of superstition probably originated when the mountain was active, and there was every probability that any one going up would have but a poor chance of getting down alive.

when going down to naivasha i had on various occasions noticed that the natives when they crossed certain streams used to leave a little food at a particular place, generally a few sweet potatoes broken up—sometimes it was left in the bush; and when i asked why they had done that, they gave me to understand that they were performing some religious rite, but i never managed to get any satisfactory explanation of it.

still more curious, to my mind, were some huge heaps of stones to be seen at certain places as we passed along the caravan track. when we came within sight of one of these heaps a native would pick up a stone, or he had, perhaps, been carrying one for some time in anticipation of coming to the spot, and cast it on the heap, at the same time muttering some prayer to ngai, as it was on these occasions that he would

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ask ngai for anything that he was in need of. it struck me as very remarkable that in my later travels in abyssinia i should come across the same kind of heaps of stones, while some of my abyssinian followers went through a similar performance of adding to the heap. when i questioned an abyssinian as to the meaning of the performance, he would reply by pointing in the direction of a church, which stood on the top of a hill away in the distance, and tell me that, not being able to go to the church to make his devotions, he threw a stone on the heap as a substitute for the performance of his religious duty; and i noticed that while putting the stone on the heap he would bow towards the church. the abyssinians are, of course, members of a branch of the coptic church, and it struck me as possible that the idea had in some way travelled from them to the kikuyu, who copied it, not knowing precisely what it meant, but understanding that it was some form of worship of ngai.

i have already mentioned that the practice of spitting plays a large part in many of the kikuyu customs, and i also found that the same thing prevailed among the people in the district up towards lake rudolph, and in fact it was the custom with the majority of the people up towards the north, as i found when i came in contact with them in my later travels. it might seem

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to europeans a vulgar thing to enlarge upon, but it was by no means regarded in the same light by the inhabitants of east africa, amongst whom it was regarded as the highest compliment you could pay a man if you spat on him, or, better still, on his children. on my first introduction to the big savage chief wagombi, he asked me to spit on his children; and among both the masai and kikuyu a friendly introduction was not complete unless spitting had entered into it. they very seldom speak of their children without spitting, and i concluded that the practice denoted respect.

the kikuyu had a great variety of dances; some were for men only and some for women only, while there were some in which it was the custom for both sexes to take part. there was also one particular dance, which was danced by all the young boys before they were circumcised, in which all who took part were painted white from head to foot, while each wore a kind of toy shield on the left arm and carried, in place of the usual spear of the warriors, a white wand, decorated with white goat’s hair. this band of whitewashed young savages went from village to village performing their dance, which they did very well, keeping remarkably good time, and as the postures were gone through each time in exactly the same way and in precisely the same order, it was evident that they had

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some recognized rule and method in their dancing.

river scenery

although the kikuyu are fearless fighters when their blood is up and will slay their enemies without the slightest compunction, they have a most extraordinary fear of the dead, and would not on any account touch a corpse, for which reason they never bury their dead. i have known a few instances of particularly wealthy or important natives being accorded the honour of burial, but, as a rule, when a native dies, if he happens to be in his hut, the body is left there, and no one ever enters the hut again. if a poor man, or a man of no particular standing, happens to fall sick, and they think he is likely to die, he is carried into the bush at some distance from the village, a fire is lighted, and a pile of wood placed handy so that he can replenish it, and he is then left to die.

the kikuyu, like nearly all other african tribes, are polygamous, and the general rule seems to be that any ordinary individual may have three or four wives, though, as marriage is simply a question of paying so much for the woman, the number is apt to vary with the man’s wealth, some of the bigger chiefs having as many as twenty or thirty. they do not, of course, regard women in the same way that we do, but look upon them more in the light of slaves, the value of a wife being reckoned at

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about thirty sheep. the women have to do all the work of the family and house, the man himself doing practically nothing. they build the huts, cultivate the shambas, and do all the field work, though at certain times of the year when new ground has to be cleared for cultivation the men condescend to take a share in the work. each wife has her own separate hut, where she lives with her family, and, if her husband is a big chief, he may have a hut for his own individual use, but, as a rule, he resides with his different wives alternately. they have very large families, and the children begin to take their share of the work at a very early age—the little girl of three years of age relieving her mother of the care of the baby of one year, and, as they grow older, their share in the work increases in proportion. the very young boys have their share in the work too, and may be seen at a very early age tending the herds of cattle, sheep, and goats. this practice, prevalent almost throughout africa, of making the woman support the family, while the man does little but loaf or fight, is at the root of the often openly expressed desire of the (so-called) christian natives that the church should allow polygamy among her african converts—a desire which has been quite as strongly expressed by the “civilized” and educated natives on the west coast as among the more primitive tribes of the east and the interior.

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on the whole, the people seemed to lead a very happy and contented life. they are almost vegetarians in their manner of living, their staple food being sweet potatoes, although they include a variety of other articles in their diet, such as yams (which they call kigwa), matama, beans, indian corn (or maize), and a smaller grain called mawhali, besides bananas, sugar-cane, &c. they also have a very small grain like canary-seed, called umkanori, which they grind into flour by means of a hand-mill, composed of two stones—a large one at the bottom, on which they place the grain, and a smaller one on top, with which they grind it, after the fashion of the mills described in the bible as being in use in the east thousands of years ago. with the flour made from the umkanori-seed they make a kind of porridge, which i found very palatable. the natives call it ujuru, and it combines the properties of both food and drink, being left to ferment until it somewhat resembles tywala, or kafir beer, and is very nourishing. when the natives are going on a journey which takes them any distance from their homes, or out to work in the fields, they take a calabash of ujuru with them, a smaller calabash, cut in half, being used as a cup, into which the liquid is poured for drinking.

the kikuyu appeared to have no regular hour for eating, except in the evening, when the day’s

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work is over. then everybody, men, women, and children, could be seen sitting round a huge calabash, cut in half to form a kind of basin, all helping themselves from the contents of the vessel, which would, perhaps, consist of sweet potatoes, or indian corn, or perhaps bananas, roasted. in connexion with this custom of the evening meal, i may here make mention of the open-handed hospitality which is the rule rather than the exception among all the native races of africa; in fact, i make bold to say that any man who is willing to work at all cannot possibly be stranded in africa, unless, it may be, in one of the larger towns. i have often noticed a native come into a village at the time of the evening meal, walk up to the circle, and sit down and help himself to sweet potatoes or whatever there might be; and on my remarking to the headman on the number of his grown-up sons i have been told, “oh, that is not one of my sons; he is a stranger.” when i asked where he came from, i was told that they did not know; they had not asked him even his name, and knew nothing whatever about him. he would settle himself by the fire for the night, and go on his way the next morning without his host being any the wiser as to his name or where he came from.

this is only one of the points in which the ignorant heathen so often set an example worthy

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of imitation by some of the so-called civilized christians.

they grow a calabash which serves them for almost every household purpose, such as storing liquid, carrying water, or as a drinking vessel. for carrying grain or other purposes of that kind they make a bag from the fibre which they obtain from certain trees, and which varies in size according to the purpose for which it is required; while for cooking or for storing large quantities of water they use earthenware pots, which are made in certain districts of the kikuyu country in practically the same way as pottery was made in the early days in our own country, being fashioned out of a particular kind of clay and then burnt to harden them. the method of cooking is very much the same throughout africa, a small fire being made within a triangle, composed of three large stones. an old camp may always be recognized by these three stones, which show where the fire was made for cooking, although all other traces of the camp may have disappeared under a luxuriant growth of grass, several feet high.

the kikuyu make all their own weapons—spears, swords, and arrows—from the iron which is found in various parts of the country, and which they smelt in the old-fashioned way. i found that the style of bellows used by them

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was the same as those i had seen in other parts of africa, being made out of a sheepskin, fashioned to a pointed bag, which, when opened, admitted the air and expelled it again when pressed down. two sets of bellows were worked together, one with each hand. the native blacksmith uses a large stone as an anvil, and possesses a variety of hammers, some of them being simply ordinary pieces of stone, while others are in the form of a dumb-bell, which he grasps in the middle when striking with it. singularly enough, the tongs which he uses to hold the heated iron are practically the same as those used by the english blacksmith. as the smith is, of course, paid for his labour in kind, he charges one sheep for a spear, while a sword may be had for the same price. i found that a lot of the iron-wire which i brought into the country was worked up into swords and spears, possibly because it entailed less labour than the working up of the native iron. in addition to the fighting weapons, they made iron rings and chains, which were worn as ornaments.

speaking of ornaments, one very characteristic feature of kikuyu adornment is the enormous size of their ear appendages—they cannot be called earrings. when the children are quite young a hole is made in the lobe of the ear, similar to the fashion in europe of piercing the lobe for earrings. but they are not content with the comparatively

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small ornaments that satisfy the vanity of european women: their ambition is to have the ear ornament as large as they can possibly manage; so the hole in the lobe of the ear is distended by means of a series of wooden pegs, gradually increasing in size until it is large enough to allow of the insertion of a jam-jar or condensed milk tin, which are by no means unusual ornaments for a native to be seen wearing in the ear. and very proud they are as they go about wearing these extraordinary adornments, which one would think must be decidedly uncomfortable for the wearers; they certainly appear so to european eyes, but the natives do not seem to consider them so, and are quite satisfied with the effect.

i do not think that i have mentioned that the kikuyu cultivate a large amount of tobacco from which to make snuff, for, although they do not smoke, all the men take snuff. many of the other tribes grow tobacco, but not to such an extent as the kikuyu, who know better how to cure it than any of their neighbours; in fact, the kikuyu tobacco has such a reputation in the country that to my surprise i found that the natives about lake rudolph, and even right round as far as abyssinia, were inquiring for kikuyu tobacco.

the most striking incidents of my life at this

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time while i was living among the kikuyu were occurrences which took place on some of the journeys down to naivasha with the caravans taking in food. on two occasions while marching down i had people killed by elephants, which were fairly numerous in the bamboo forest at certain times of the year. with a safari of a thousand men the long line of porters extended for about five or six miles, winding through the forest like a huge serpent and tailing away into the distance; and occasionally, when an elephant crossed the path, one of the stragglers in the rear would find himself suddenly encircled round the body by an elephant’s trunk and hurled several feet in the air, to be trampled to death under the ponderous brute’s feet when his body crashed to the ground again. the porters nearest to him would then set up a shout, which was repeated all along the line until it reached me, when i would immediately rush back as quickly as possible, only to find, when i at length reached the spot, that the elephant had been lost in the forest long before i got there, the bamboos growing so thickly that it could not be seen for any great distance. incidents of this sort happened on two occasions on the road to naivasha.

the forest was full of animal life, including a fair number of bushbuck and some specimens of a very rare kind of buck known as the bongo.

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the bongo has horns like those of the bushbuck, but very much larger, curving backwards with one or two spiral twists, and ending in a point tipped with white. the hide is reddish in colour, with very narrow white stripes. there are a few of the species to be found at the ravine. among the other inhabitants of the forest i have seen wart hogs and wild pigs, while the colobus monkey makes his home in the bamboo forest, and is regarded as sacred by the natives, who, as far as i could understand, were in the habit of placing sacrifices in the forest, which these monkeys came and ate. the skin of the colobus monkey is greatly prized, the hair being very long, while the upper part of the body is jet black, with a white stripe down each side, widening towards the tail, which is also white, the result of the peculiar arrangement of the two colours being to give the animal a very curious appearance. guinea-fowl were very plentiful, and i also saw some partridges, but was never tempted to shoot any. at times we had great difficulty in getting through the forest, in consequence of the elephants having pulled down a number of the bamboos and thus blocked the path, and we frequently had to make a new path before we could proceed on our journey.

i had some personal experiences with animals in the forest, which added a little excitement to the journeys. on one occasion as we were

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going along some of the boys pointed into the bush, saying, “yama,” which is the swahili word for meat, and is applied indiscriminately to any animal. it was getting dusk, and, peering into the bush, i could see something dark moving, but not being able in the half-darkness to see what it was, i thought that the best thing to do was to try the effect of a bullet on it. i had no sooner fired than the animal charged out on me, and i saw that it was a huge rhinoceros. having only soft-nosed bullets, my shot had not injured it, and as it was only about ten paces from where i was standing i had only just time to spring out of the way before it blundered past me. immediately every man dropped his load and sprang up the nearest tree, while the rhino, after passing me, slowed down and began sniffing about among the loads which the porters had thrown to the ground in their hurry to get to places of safety. although i knew that unless i could hit him in a vulnerable spot it was no use firing, i gave him a few shots at random, which had the effect of driving him off.

one night we had a peculiar experience with a lion. with such a number of porters it was impossible to provide tents for all the men, so we used to bivouac at nights either on the edge of the forest or in some deep ravine where we were sheltered from the wind. on the particular

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evening of which i am writing we were settled for the night in a ravine, and i was suddenly aroused from my sleep by shouting, howling, and the waving of firebrands, while at the same moment a huge boulder came crashing through my tent. thinking that it was at least an attack by the kalyera or masai or some of the other natives, i rushed out of my tent to find that what had really happened was that a lion had come prowling round the camp, and was in the act of springing on some man sleeping below when he dislodged a boulder from the overhanging ledge on which he was crouching for the spring, which had dropped on my tent. the noise made by the porters and the stone slipping from under its feet must have scared the animal, as he made off just as i came out. there were quite a number of lions on the kinangop plain and near naivasha, so we always made big fires at night to guard the camp, and never had the bad luck to have any one taken. one day a masai reported that a lion had been into the kraal and had killed thirty sheep, every one of which had been killed by a tap of his paw, but none of them had been eaten.

i was told of a remarkable occurrence which had taken place at naivasha. one of the officials there had a white horse, and one night a prowling lion sprang on its back. hearing the noise, one of the soldiers fired, and, although it was too

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dark to take an accurate aim, he was fortunate enough to hit the lion, which dropped off the horse’s back dead, while the horse was none the worse, save for a few scratches from the lion’s claws. of course, it was purely a chance shot, as it was much too dark for the man to see clearly, and that was probably how he came to kill the lion—niggers being, as a rule, atrocious shots with a rifle.

when going into naivasha, the country around there being considered practically safe, i often used to gallop on ahead of the caravan on my mule, taking only a couple of boys with me, to let them know that the safari was coming and to make arrangements for it on arrival. on one of these occasions, when crossing the kinangop plain, i had a rather lively experience with a leopard. after being cooped up in the hills for so long it was a pleasure to get a good gallop over the open plain, and i was riding along, thoroughly enjoying the exercise, when, chancing to look round to see how far my gun-bearer was behind, i saw a leopard following me at a distance of about thirty yards. i at once pulled up, when the leopard immediately followed my example, and, after looking at one another for a minute or two, the animal began walking slowly up and down, swishing its tail about, and looking for all the world like a big cat, but it did not offer to approach any nearer.

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this went on for some time, until i at last saw the boy come into sight, carrying my gun; but directly he saw the leopard, which was between us, he was afraid to come any farther, and though i waved my hand to him to make his way round to me, he would not move. the leopard still continued to march up and down, until presently it saw the boy and appeared to hesitate, as if wondering which of us to attack, though my mule had evidently been the first attraction. the animal seemed to be puzzled at seeing me on its back, and apparently did not quite know what to make of it. seeing that the boy was too scared to come to me, i made a detour—the leopard still following me at about the same distance—and as soon as i reached the boy i dismounted quickly, and, taking my gun from him, fired at the animal, and evidently hit him, for he gave a bound and cleared off. whilst he was making off as fast as he could go i managed to get two more shots in, and followed him until he disappeared into some bushes. knowing that one does not stand a chance with a wounded leopard in a bush, i hesitated to follow, but i did not like to leave it; so i tried, by throwing stones and in other ways, to find out whether it was still alive and likely to be dangerous or whether i had actually finished it. hearing no movement, i plucked up courage, after some manœuvring, to go into the bush. moving as

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stealthily as i could, not knowing whether the animal might not spring out on me at any moment, i worked my way cautiously in, but i had not gone many yards before i found it lying stone dead.

a wounded leopard is one of the most dangerous animals in the world to tackle, and two of my friends were lamed for life as a result of following up leopards which they had only wounded. one was a man named hall, and the other a hunter named vincent. the latter had wounded a leopard, and was following it into the bush when the animal sprang at him suddenly and tried to seize him by the throat, and a hand-to-hand fight ensued. vincent managed to throw the animal off and fired at it, but it flew at him again, and the struggle went on until he had emptied his magazine into the brute’s body, having fired ten rounds into it. the leopard had managed in the struggle to fasten its teeth in his knee and to bite him very severely. as the result blood poisoning set in, and vincent was laid up for several months and was lamed for life.