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African Camp Fires

by Stewart Edward White · English · Gutenberg #14451 · 456,285 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: African Camp Fires

Author: Stewart Edward White


        
Release date: December 24, 2004 [eBook #14451]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14451

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFRICAN CAMP FIRES ***

AFRICAN CAMP FIRES

BY

STEWART EDWARD WHITE

     THOMAS NELSON AND SONS
     LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN
     AND NEW YORK




CONTENTS.


     PART I.--TO THE ISLAND OF WAR.

     I. THE OPEN DOOR

     II. THE FAREWELL

     III. PORT SAID

     IV. SUEZ

     V. THE RED SEA

     VI. ADEN

     VII. THE INDIAN OCEAN

     VIII. MOMBASA


     PART II.--THE SHIMBA HILLS.

     IX. A TROPICAL JUNGLE

     X. THE SABLE

     XI. A MARCH ALONG THE COAST

     XII. THE FIRE


     PART III.--NAIROBI.

     XIII. UP FROM THE COAST

     XIV. A TOWN OF CONTRASTS

     XV. PEOPLE

     XVI. RECRUITING


     PART IV.--A LION HUNT ON KAPITI.

     XVII. AN OSTRICH FARM AT MACHAKOS

     XVIII. THE FIRST LIONESS

     XIX. THE DOGS

     XX. BONDONI

     XXI. RIDING THE PLAINS

     XXII. THE SECOND LIONESS

     XXIII. THE BIG LION

     XXIV. THE FIFTEEN LIONS


     PART V.--THE TSAVO RIVER.

     XXV. VOI

     XXVI. THE FRINGE-EARED ORYX

     XXVII. ACROSS THE SERENGETTI

     XXVIII. DOWN THE RIVER

     XXIX. THE LESSER KUDU

     XXX. ADVENTURES BY THE WAY

     XXXI. THE LOST SAFARI

     XXXII. THE BABU


     PART VI.--IN MASAILAND.

     XXXIII. OVER THE LIKIPIA ESCARPMENT

     XXXIV. TO THE KEDONG

     XXXV. THE TEANSPORT RIDER

     XXXVI. ACROSS THE THIRST

     XXXVII. THE SOUTHERN GUASO NYERO

     XXXVIII. THE LOWER BENCHES

     XXXIX. NOTES ON THE MASAI

     XL. THROUGH THE ENCHANTED FOREST

     XLI. NAIOKOTUKU

     XLII. SCOUTING IN THE ELEPHANT FOREST

     XLIII. THE TOPI CAMP

     XLIV. THE UNKNOWN LAND

     XLV. THE ROAN

     XLVI. THE GREATER KUDU

     XLVII. THE MAGIC PORTALS CLOSE

     XLVIII. THE LAST TREK




PART I.


TO THE ISLAND OF WAR.




I.

THE OPEN DOOR.


There are many interesting hotels scattered about the world, with a few
of which I am acquainted and with a great many of which I am not. Of
course all hotels are interesting, from one point of view or another. In
fact, the surest way to fix an audience's attention is to introduce your
hero, or to display your opening chorus in the lobby or along the façade
of a hotel. The life, the movement and colour, the drifting
individualities, the pretence, the bluff, the self-consciousness, the
independence, the _ennui_, the darting or lounging servants, the very
fact that of those before your eyes seven out of ten are drawn from
distant and scattered places, are sufficient in themselves to invest the
smallest hostelry with glamour. It is not of this general interest that
I would now speak. Nor is it my intention at present to glance at the
hotels wherein "quaintness" is specialized, whether intentionally or no.
There are thousands of them; and all of them well worth the
discriminating traveller's attention. Concerning some of them--as the
old inns at Dives-sur-Mer and at Mont St. Michel--whole books have been
written. These depend for their charm on a mingled gift of the unusual
and the picturesque. There are, as I have said, thousands of them; and
of their cataloguing, should one embark on so wide a sea, there could be
no end. And, again, I must for convenience exclude the altogether
charming places, like the Tour d'Argent of Paris, Simpson's of the
Strand,[1] and a dozen others that will spring to every traveller's
memory, where the personality of the host, or of a chef, or even a
waiter, is at once a magnet for the attraction of visitors and a reward
for their coming. These, too, are many. In the interest to which I would
draw attention, the hotel as a building or as an institution has little
part. It is indeed a façade, a _mise en scène_before which play the
actors that attract our attention and applause. The set may be as
modernly elaborate as Peacock Alley of the Waldorf or the templed lobby
of the St. Francis; or it may present the severe and Elizabethan
simplicity of the stone-paved veranda of the Norfolk at Nairobi--the
matter is quite inessential to the spectator. His appreciation is only
slightly and indirectly influenced by these things. Sunk in his
arm-chair--of velvet or of canvas--he puffs hard and silently at his
cigar, watching and listening as the pageant and the conversation eddy
by.

Of such hotels I number that gaudy and polysyllabic hostelry the Grand
Hôtel du Louvre et de la Paix at Marseilles. I am indifferent to the
facts that it is situated on that fine thoroughfare, the Rue de
Cannebière, which the proud and untravelled native devoutly believes to
be the finest street in the world; that it possesses a dining-room of
gilded and painted _repoussé_ work so elaborate and wonderful that it
surely must be intended to represent a tinsmith's dream of heaven; that
its concierge is the most impressive human being on earth except Ludwig
von Kampf (whom I have never seen); that its head waiter is sadder and
more elderly and forgiving than any other head waiter; and that its
hushed and cathedral atmosphere has been undisturbed through immemorial
years. That is to be expected; and elsewhere to be duplicated in
greater or lesser degree. Nor in the lofty courtyard, or the equally
lofty halls and reading-rooms, is there ever much bustle and movement.
People sit quietly, or move with circumspection. Servants glide. The
fall of a book or teaspoon, the sudden closing of a door, are events to
be remarked. Once a day, however, a huge gong sounds, the glass doors of
the inner courtyard are thrown open with a flourish, and enters the huge
bus fairly among those peacefully sitting at the tables, horses' hoofs
striking fire, long lash-cracking volleys, wheels roaring amid hollow
reverberations. From the interior of this bus emerge people; and from
the top, by means of a strangely-constructed hooked ladder, are decanted
boxes, trunks, and appurtenances of various sorts. In these people, and
in these boxes, trunks, and appurtenances, are the real interest of the
Grand Hôtel du Louvre et de la Paix of the marvellous Rue Cannebière of
Marseilles.

For at Marseilles land ships, many ships, from all the scattered ends of
the earth; and from Marseilles depart trains for the North, where is
home, or the way home for many peoples. And since the arrival of ships
is uncertain, and the departure of trains fixed, it follows that
everybody descends for a little or greater period at the Grand Hôtel du
Louvre et de la Paix.

They come lean and quiet and a little yellow from hard climates, with
the names of strange places on their lips, and they speak familiarly of
far-off things. Their clothes are generally of ancient cut, and the
wrinkles and camphor aroma of a long packing away are yet discernible.
Often they are still wearing sun helmets or double terai hats, pending a
descent on a Piccadilly hatter two days hence. They move slowly and
languidly; the ordinary piercing and dominant English enunciation has
fallen to modulation; their eyes, while observant and alert, look tired.
It is as though the far countries have sucked something from the pith of
them in exchange for great experiences that nevertheless seem of little
value; as though these men, having met at last face to face the ultimate
of what the earth has to offer in the way of danger, hardship,
difficulty, and the things that try men's souls, having unexpectedly
found them all to fall short of both the importance and the final
significance with which human-kind has always invested them, were now
just a little at a loss. Therefore they stretch their long, lean frames
in the wicker chairs, they sip the long drinks at their elbows, puff
slowly at their long, lean cheroots, and talk spasmodically in short
sentences.

Of quite a different type are those going out--young fellows full of
northern health and energy, full of the eagerness of anticipation, full
of romance skilfully concealed, self-certain, authoritative, clear
voiced. Their exit from the bus is followed by a rain of hold-alls,
bags, new tin boxes, new gun cases, all lettered freshly--an enormous
kit doomed to diminution. They overflow the place, ebb towards their
respective rooms; return scrubbed and ruddy, correctly clad, correctly
unconscious of everybody else; sink into more wicker chairs. The quiet
brown and yellow men continue to puff at their cheroots, quite eclipsed.
After a time one of them picks up his battered old sun helmet and goes
out into the street. The eyes of the newcomers follow him. They fall
silent; and their eyes, under cover of pulled moustache, furtively
glance towards the lean man's companions. Then on that office falls a
great silence, broken only by the occasional rare remarks of the quiet
men with the cheroots. The youngsters are listening with all their ears,
though from their appearance no one would suspect that fact. Not a
syllable escapes them. These quiet men have been there; they have seen
with their own eyes; their lightest word is saturated with the mystery
and romance of the unknown. Their easy, matter-of-fact, everyday
knowledge is richly wonderful. It would seem natural for these
young-young men to question these old-young men of that which they
desire so ardently to know; but that isn't done, you know. So they sit
tight, and pretend they are not listening, and feast their ears on the
wonderful syllables--Ankobar, Kabul, Peshawur, Annam, Nyassaland,
Kerman, Serengetti, Tanganika, and many others. On these beautiful
syllables must their imaginations feed, for that which is told is as
nothing at all. Adventure there is none, romance there is none, mention
of high emprise there is none. Adventure, romance, high emprise have to
these men somehow lost their importance. Perhaps such things have been
to them too common--as well mention the morning egg. Perhaps they have
found that there is no genuine adventure, no real romance except over
the edge of the world where the rainbow stoops.

The bus rattles in and rattles out again. It takes the fresh-faced young
men down past the inner harbour to where lie the tall ships waiting.
They and their cargo of exuberance, of hope, of energy, of thirst for
the bubble adventure, the rainbow romance, sail away to where these
wares have a market. And the quiet men glide away to the North. Their
wares have been marketed. The sleepy, fierce, passionate, sunny lands
have taken all they had to bring. And have given in exchange?
Indifference, ill-health, a profound realization that the length of days
are as nothing at all; a supreme agnosticism as to the ultimate value of
anything that a single man can do, a sublime faith that it must be done,
the power to concentrate, patience illimitable; contempt for danger,
disregard of death, the intention to live; a final, weary estimate of
the fact that mere things are as unimportant here as there, no matter
how quaintly or fantastically they are dressed or named, and a
corresponding emptiness of anticipation for the future--these items are
only a random few of the price given by the ancient lands for that which
the northern races bring to them. What other alchemical changes have
been wrought only these lean and weary men could know--if they dared
look so far within themselves. And even if they dared, they would not
tell.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In old days before the "improvements."




II.

THE FAREWELL.


We boarded ship, filled with a great, and what seemed to us, an
unappeasable curiosity as to what we were going to see. It was not a
very big ship, in spite of the grandiloquent descriptions in the
advertisements, or the lithograph wherein she cut grandly and evenly
through huge waves to the manifest discomfiture of infinitesimal sailing
craft bobbing alongside. She was manned entirely by Germans. The room
stewards waited at table, cleaned the public saloons, kept the library,
rustled the baggage, and played in the band. That is why we took our
music between meals. Our staterooms were very tiny indeed. Each was
provided with an electric fan; a totally inadequate and rather
aggravating electric fan once we had entered the Red Sea. Just at this
moment we paid it little attention, for we were still in full enjoyment
of sunny France, where, in our own experience, it had rained two months
steadily. Indeed, at this moment it was raining, raining a steady, cold,
sodden drizzle that had not even the grace to pick out the surface of
the harbour in the jolly dancing staccato that goes far to lend
attraction to a genuinely earnest rainstorm.

Down the long quay splashed cabs and omnibuses, their drivers glistening
in wet capes, to discharge under the open shed at the end various hasty
individuals who marshalled long lines of porters with astonishing
impedimenta and drove them up the gang-plank. A half-dozen roughs
lounged aimlessly. A little bent old woman with a shawl over her head
searched here and there. Occasionally she would find a twisted splinter
of wood torn from the piles by a hawser or gouged from the planking by
heavy freight, or kicked from the floor by the hoofs of horses. This she
deposited carefully in a small covered market basket. She was entirely
intent on this minute and rather pathetic task, quite unattending the
greatness of the ship, or the many people the great hulk swallowed or
spat forth.

Near us against the rail leaned a dark-haired young Englishman whom
later every man on that many-nationed ship came to recognize and to
avoid as an insufferable bore. Now, however, the angel of good
inspiration stooped to him. He tossed a copper two-sou piece down to the
bent old woman. She heard the clink of the fall, and looked up
bewildered. One of the waterside roughs slouched forward. The Englishman
shouted a warning and a threat, indicating in pantomime for whom the
coin was intended. To our surprise that evil-looking wharf rat smiled
and waved his hand reassuringly, then took the old woman by the arm to
show her where the coin had fallen. She hobbled to it with a haste
eloquent of the horrible Marseillaise poverty-stricken alleys, picked it
up joyously, turned--and with a delightful grace kissed her finger-tips
towards the ship.

Apparently we all of us had a few remaining French coins; and certainly
we were all grateful to the young Englishman for his happy thought. The
sous descended as fast as the woman could get to where they fell. So
numerous were they that she had no time to express her gratitude except
in broken snatches or gesture, in interrupted attitudes of the most
complete thanksgiving. The day of miracles for her had come; and from
the humble poverty that valued tiny and infrequent splinters of wood she
had suddenly come into great wealth. Everybody was laughing, but in a
very kindly sort of way it seemed to me; and the very wharf rats and
gamins, wolfish and fierce in their everyday life of the water-front,
seemed to take a genuine pleasure in pointing out to her the
resting-place of those her dim old eyes had not seen. Silver pieces
followed. These were too wonderful. She grew more and more excited,
until several of the passengers leaning over the rail began to murmur
warningly, fearing harm. After picking up each of these silver pieces,
she bowed and gestured very gracefully, waving both hands outward,
lifting eyes and hands to heaven, kissing her fingers, trying by every
means in her power to express the dazzling wonder and joy that this
unexpected marvel was bringing her. When she had done all these things
many times, she hugged herself ecstatically. A very well-dressed and
prosperous-looking Frenchman standing near seemed to be a little afraid
she might hug him. His fear had, perhaps, some grounds, for she shook
hands with everybody all around, and showed them her wealth in her
kerchief, explaining eagerly, the tears running down her face.

Now the gang-plank was drawn aboard, and the band struck up the usual
lively air. At the first notes the old woman executed a few feeble
little jig steps in sheer exuberance. Then the solemnity of the
situation sobered her. Her great, wealthy, powerful, kind friends were
departing on their long voyage over mysterious seas. Again and again,
very earnestly, she repeated the graceful, slow pantomime--the wave of
the arms outward, the eyes raised to heaven, the hands clasped finally
over her head. As the brown strip of water silently widened between us
it was strangely like a stage scene--the roofed sheds of the quay, the
motionless groups, the central figure of the old woman depicting
emotion.

Suddenly she dropped her hands and hobbled away at a great rate,
disappearing finally into the maze of the street beyond. Concluding that
she had decided to get quickly home with her great treasure, we
commended her discretion and gave our attention to other things.

The drizzle fell uninterruptedly. We had edged sidewise the requisite
distance, and were now gathering headway in our long voyage. The quail
was beginning to recede and to diminish. Back from the street hastened
the figure of the little old woman. She carried a large white cloth, of
which she had evidently been in quest. This she unfolded and waved
vigorously with both hands. Until we had passed quite from sight she
stood there signalling her farewell. Long after we were beyond
distinguishing her figure we could catch the flutter of white. Thus that
ship's company, embarking each on his Great Adventure, far from home and
friends, received their farewell, a very genuine farewell, from one poor
old woman. B. ventured the opinion that it was the best thing we had
bought with our French money.




III.

PORT SAID.


The time of times to approach Port Said is just at the fall of dusk.
Then the sea lies in opalescent patches, and the low shores fade away
into the gathering night. The slanting masts and yards of the dhows
silhouette against a sky of the deepest translucent green; and the
heroic statue of De Lesseps, standing for ever at the Gateway he opened,
points always to the mysterious East.

The rhythmical, accustomed chug of the engines had fallen to quarter
speed, leaving an uncanny stillness throughout the ship. Silently we
slipped between the long piers, drew up on the waterside town, seized
the buoy, and came to rest. All around us lay other ships of all sizes,
motionless on the inky water. The reflections from their lights seemed
to be thrust into the depths, like stilts; and the few lights from the
town reflected shiveringly across. Along the water-front all was dark
and silent. We caught the loom of buildings; and behind them a dull glow
as from a fire, and guessed tall minarets, and heard the rising and
falling of chanting. Numerous small boats hovered near, floating in and
out of the patches of light we ourselves cast, waiting for permission to
swarm at the gang-plank for our patronage.

We went ashore, passed through a wicket gate, and across the dark
buildings to the heart of the town, whence came the dull glow and the
sounds of people.

Here were two streets running across one another, both brilliantly
lighted, both thronged, both lined with little shops. In the latter one
could buy anything, in any language, with any money. In them we saw
cheap straw hats made in Germany hung side by side with gorgeous and
beautiful stuffs from the Orient; shoddy European garments and Eastern
jewels; cheap celluloid combs and curious embroideries. The crowd of
passers-by in the streets were compounded in the same curiously mixed
fashion; a few Europeans, generally in white, and then a variety of
Arabs, Egyptians, Somalis, Berbers, East Indians and the like, each in
his own gaudy or graceful costume. It speaks well for the accuracy of
feeling, anyway, of our various "Midways," "Pikes," and the like of our
world's expositions that the streets of Port Said looked like Midways
raised to the nth power. Along them we sauntered with a pleasing feeling
of self-importance. On all sides we were gently and humbly besought--by
the shopkeepers, by the sidewalk vendors, by would-be guides, by
fortune-tellers, by jugglers, by magicians; all soft-voiced and
respectful; all yielding as water to rebuff, but as quick as water to
glide back again. The vendors were of the colours of the rainbow, and
were heavily hung with long necklaces of coral or amber, with scarves,
with strings of silver coins, with sequinned veils and silks, girt with
many dirks and knives, furnished out in concealed pockets with scarabs,
bracelets, sandalwood boxes or anything else under the broad canopy of
heaven one might or might not desire. Their voices were soft and
pleasing, their eyes had the beseeching quality of a good dog's, their
anxious and deprecating faces were ready at the slightest encouragement
to break out into the friendliest and most intimate of smiles. Wherever
we went we were accompanied by a retinue straight out of the Arabian
Nights, patiently awaiting the moment when we should tire; should seek
out the table of a sidewalk café; and should, in our relaxed mood, be
ready to unbend to our royal purchases.

At that moment we were too much interested in the town itself. The tiny
shops, with their smiling and insinuating Oriental keepers, were
fascinating in their displays of carved woods, jewellery, perfumes,
silks, tapestries, silversmiths' work, ostrich feathers, and the like.
To either side the main street lay long narrow dark alleys, in which
flared single lights, across which flitted mysterious long-robed
figures, from which floated stray snatches of music either palpitatingly
barbaric or ridiculously modern. There the authority of the straight,
soldierly-looking Soudanese policemen ceased, and it was not safe to
wander unarmed or alone.

Besides these motley variegations of the East and West, the main feature
of the town was the street car. It was an open-air structure of spacious
dimensions, as though benches and a canopy had been erected rather
haphazard on a small dancing platform. The track is absurdly narrow in
gauge; and as a consequence the edifice swayed and swung from side to
side. A single mule was attached to it loosely by about ten feet of
rope. It was driven by a gaudy ragamuffin in a turban. Various other
gaudy ragamuffins lounged largely and picturesquely on the widely spaced
benches. Whence it came or whither it went I do not know. Its orbit
swung into the main street, turned a corner, and disappeared. Apparently
Europeans did not patronize this picturesque wreck, but drove elegantly
but mysteriously in small open cabs conducted by totally incongruous
turbaned drivers.

We ended finally at an imposing corner hotel, where we dined by an open
window just above the level of the street. A dozen upturned faces
besought us silently during the meal. At a glance of even the mildest
interest a dozen long brown arms thrust the spoils of the East upon our
consideration. With us sat a large benign Swedish professor whose
erudition was encyclopaedic, but whose kindly humanity was greater.
Uttering deep, cavernous chuckles, the professor bargained. A red coral
necklace for the moment was the matter of interest. The professor
inspected it carefully, and handed it back.

"I doubt if id iss coral," said he simply.

The present owner of the beads went frantic with rapid-fire proof and
vociferation. With the swiftness and precision of much repetition he
fished out a match, struck it, applied the flame to the alleged coral,
and blew out the match; cast the necklace on the pavement, produced
mysteriously a small hammer, and with it proceeded frantically to pound
the beads. Evidently he was accustomed to being doubted, and carried his
materials for proof around with him. Then, in one motion, the hammer
disappeared, the beads were snatched up, and again offered, unharmed,
for inspection.

"Are those good tests for genuineness?" we asked the professor, aside.

"As to that," he replied regretfully, "I do not know. I know of coral
only that is the hard calcareous skeleton of the marine coelenterate
polyps; and that this red coral iss called of a sclerobasic group; and
other facts of the kind; but I do not know if it iss supposed to resist
impact and heat. Possibly," he ended shrewdly, "it is the common
imitation which does _not_ resist impact and heat. At any rate they are
pretty. How much?" he demanded of the vendor, a bright-eyed Egyptian
waiting patiently until our conference should cease.

"Twenty shillings," he replied promptly.

The professor shook with one of his cavernous chuckles.

"Too much," he observed, and handed the necklace back through the
window.

The Egyptian would by no means receive it.

"Keep! keep!" he implored, thrusting the mass of red upon the professor
with both hands. "How much you give?"

"One shilling," announced the professor firmly.

The coral necklace lay on the edge of the table throughout most of our
leisurely meal. The vendor argued, pleaded, gave it up, disappeared in
the crowd, returned dramatically after an interval. The professor ate
calmly, chuckled much, and from time to time repeated firmly the words,
"One shilling." Finally, at the cheese, he reached out, swept the coral
into his pocket, and laid down two shillings. The Egyptian deftly
gathered the coin, smiled cheerfully, and produced a glittering veil, in
which he tried in vain to enlist Billy's interest.

For coffee and cigars we moved to the terrace outside. Here an orchestra
played, the peoples of many nations sat at little tables, the peddlers,
fakirs, jugglers, and fortune-tellers swarmed. A half-dozen postal cards
seemed sufficient to set a small boy up in trade, and to imbue him with
all the importance and insistence of a merchant with jewels. Other
ten-year-old ragamuffins tried to call our attention to some sort of
sleight-of-hand with poor downy little chickens. Grave, turbaned, and
polite Indians squatted cross-legged at our feet, begging to give us a
look into the future by means of the only genuine hall-marked Yogi-ism;
a troupe of acrobats went energetically and hopefully through quite a
meritorious performance a few feet away; a deftly triumphant juggler did
very easily, and directly beneath our watchful eyes, some really
wonderful tricks. A butterfly-gorgeous swarm of insinuating smiling
peddlers of small things dangled and spread their wares where they
thought themselves most sure of attention. Beyond our own little group
we saw slowly passing in the lighted street outside the portico the
variegated and picturesque loungers. Across the way a phonograph bawled;
our stringed orchestra played "The Dollar Princess;" from somewhere over
in the dark and mysterious alleyways came the regular beating of a
tom-tom. The magnificent and picturesque town car with its gaudy
ragamuffins swayed by in train of its diminutive mule.

Suddenly our persistent and amusing _entourage_ vanished in all
directions. Standing idly at the portico was a very straight, black
Soudanese. On his head was the usual red fez; his clothing was of trim
khaki; his knees and feet were bare, with blue puttees between; and
around his middle was drawn close and smooth a blood-red sash at least a
foot and a half in breadth. He made a fine upstanding Egyptian figure,
and was armed with pride, a short sheathed club, and a great scorn. No
word spoke he, nor command; but merely jerked a thumb towards the
darkness, and into the darkness our many-hued horde melted away. We were
left feeling rather lonesome!

Near midnight we sauntered down the street to the quay, whence we were
rowed to the ship by another turbaned, long-robed figure, who sweetly
begged just a copper or so "for poor boatman."

We found the ship in the process of coaling, every porthole and doorway
closed, and heavy canvas hung to protect as far as possible the clean
decks. Two barges were moored alongside. Two blazing braziers lighted
them with weird red and flickering flames. In their depths, cast in
black and red shadows, toiled half-guessed figures; from their depths,
mounting a single steep plank, came an unbroken procession of natives,
naked save for a wisp of cloth around the loins. They trod closely on
each other's heels, carrying each his basket atop his head or on one
shoulder, mounted a gang-plank, discharged their loads into the side of
the ship, and descended again to the depths by way of another plank. The
lights flickered across their dark faces, their gleaming teeth and eyes.
Somehow the work demanded a heap of screeching, shouting, and
gesticulation; but somehow also it went forward rapidly. Dozens of
unattached natives lounged about the gunwales with apparently nothing to
do but to look picturesque. Shore boats moved into the narrow circle of
light, drifted to our gangway, and discharged huge crates of vegetables,
sacks of unknown stuffs, and returning passengers. A vigilant police
boat hovered near to settle disputes, generally with the blade of an
oar. For a long time we leaned over the rail watching them, and the
various reflected lights in the water, and the very clear, unwavering
stars. Then, the coaling finished, and the portholes once more opened,
we turned in.




IV.

SUEZ.


Some time during the night we must have started, but so gently had we
slid along it fractional speed that until I raised my head and looked
out I had not realized the fact. I saw a high sandbank. This glided
monotonously by until I grew tired of looking at it and got up.

After breakfast, however, I found that the sandbank had various
attractions all of its own. Three camels laden with stone and in convoy
of white-clad figures shuffled down the slope at a picturesque angle.
Two cowled women in black, veiled to the eyes in gauze heavily sewn with
sequins, barefooted, with massive silver anklets, watched us pass. Hindu
workmen in turban and loin-cloth furnished a picturesque note, but did
not seem to be injuring themselves by over-exertion. Naked small boys
raced us for a short distance. The banks glided by very slowly and very
evenly, the wash sucked after us like water in a slough after a duck
boat, and the sky above the yellow sand looked extremely blue.

At short and regular intervals, half-way up the miniature sandhills,
heavy piles or snubbing-posts had been planted. For these we at first
could guess no reason. Soon, however, we had to pass another ship; and
then we saw that one of us must tie up to avoid being drawn irresistibly
by suction into collision with the other. The craft sidled by, separated
by only a few feet, so that we could look across to each other's decks
and exchange greetings. As the day grew this interest grew likewise.
Dredgers in the canal; rusty tramps flying unfamiliar flags of strange
tiny countries; big freighters, often with Greek or Turkish characters
on their sterns; small dirty steamers of suspicious business; passenger
ships like our own, returning from the tropics, with white-clad, languid
figures reclining in canvas chairs; gunboats of this or that nation
bound on mysterious affairs; once a P. & O. converted into a troopship,
from whose every available porthole, hatch, deck, and shroud laughing,
brown, English faces shouted chaff at our German decks--all these
either tied up for us, or were tied up for by us. The only craft that
received no consideration on our part were the various picturesque Arab
dhows, with their single masts and the long yards slanting across them.
Since these were very small, our suction dragged at them cruelly. As a
usual thing four vociferous figures clung desperately to a rope passed
around one of the snubbing-posts ashore, while an old man shrieked
syllables at them from the dhow itself. As they never by any chance
thought of mooring her both stem and stern, the dhow generally changed
ends rapidly, shipping considerable water in the process. It must be
very trying to get so excited in a hot climate.

The high sandbanks of the early part of the day soon dropped lower to
afford us a wider view. In its broad, general features the country was,
quite simply, the desert of Arizona over again. There were the same
high, distant, and brittle-looking mountains, fragile and pearly; the
same low, broken half-distances; the same wide sweeps; the same
wonderful changing effects of light, colour, shadow, and mirage; the
same occasional strips of green marking the watercourses and oases. As
to smaller detail, we saw many interesting divergences. In the
foreground constantly recurred the Bedouin brush shelters, each with its
picturesque figure or so in flowing robes, and its grumpy camels. Twice
we saw travelling caravans, exactly like the Bible pictures. At one
place a single burnoused Arab, leaning on his elbows, reclined full
length on the sky-line of a clean-cut sandhill. Glittering in the
mirage, half-guessed, half-seen, we made out distant little white towns
with slender palm trees. At places the water from the canal had
overflowed wide tracts of country. Here, along the shore, we saw
thousands of the water-fowl already familiar to us, as well as such
strangers as gaudy kingfishers, ibises, and rosy flamingoes.

The canal itself seemed to be in a continual state of repair. Dredgers
were everywhere; some of the ordinary shovel type, others working by
suction, and discharging far inland by means of weird huge pipes that
apparently meandered at will over the face of nature. The control
stations were beautifully French and neat, painted yellow, each with its
gorgeous bougainvilleas in flower, its square-rigged signal masts, its
brightly painted extra buoys standing in a row, its wharf--and its
impassive Arab fishermen thereon. We reclined in our canvas chairs, had
lemon squashes brought to us, and watched the entertainment steadily and
slowly unrolled before us.

We reached the end of the canal about three o'clock of the afternoon,
and dropped anchor off the low-lying shores. Our binoculars showed us
white houses in apparently single rank along a far-reaching narrow sand
spit, with sparse trees and a railroad line. That was the town of Suez,
and seemed so little interesting that we were not particularly sorry
that we could not go ashore. Far in the distance were mountains; and the
water all about us was the light, clear green of the sky at sunset.

Innumerable dhows and row-boats swarmed down, filled with eager salesmen
of curios and ostrich plumes. They had not much time in which to
bargain, so they made it up in rapid-fire vociferation. One very tall
and dignified Arab had as sailor of his craft the most extraordinary
creature, just above the lower limit of the human race. He was of a dull
coal black, without a single high light on him anywhere, as though he
had been sand-papered, had prominent teeth, like those of a baboon, in a
wrinkled, wizened monkey face, across which were three tattooed bands,
and possessed a little, long-armed, spare figure, bent and wiry. He
clambered up and down his mast, fetching things at his master's behest;
leapt nonchalantly for our rail or his own spar, as the case might be,
across the staggering abyss; clung so well with his toes that he might
almost have been classified with the quadrumana; and between times
squatted humped over on the rail, watching us with bright, elfish, alien
eyes.

At last the big German sailors bundled the whole variegated horde
overside. It was time to go, and our anchor chain was already rumbling
in the hawse pipes. They tumbled hastily into their boats; and at once
swarmed up their masts, whence they feverishly continued their
interrupted bargaining. In fact, so fully embarked on the tides of
commerce were they, that they failed to notice the tides of nature
widening between us. One old man, in especial, at the very top of his
mast, jerked hither and thither by the sea, continued imploringly to
offer an utterly ridiculous carved wooden camel long after it was
impossible to have completed the transaction should anybody have been
moonstruck enough to have desired it. Our ship's prow swung; and just at
sunset, as the lights of Suez were twinkling out one by one, we headed
down the Red Sea.




V.

THE RED SEA.


Suez is indeed the gateway to the East. In the Mediterranean often the
sea is rough, the winds cold, passengers are not yet acquainted, and hug
the saloons or the leeward side of the deck. Once through the canal and
all is changed by magic. The air is hot and languid; the ship's company
down to the very scullions appear in immaculate white; the saloon chairs
and transoms even are put in white coverings; electric fans hum
everywhere; the run on lemon squashes begins; and many quaint and
curious customs of the tropics obtain.

For example: it is etiquette that before eight o'clock one may wander
the decks at will in one's pyjamas, converse affably with fair ladies in
pigtail and kimono, and be not abashed. But on the stroke of eight bells
it is also etiquette to disappear very promptly and to array one's self
for the day; and it is very improper indeed to see or be seen after that
hour in the rather extreme _negligée_ of the early morning. Also it
becomes the universal custom, or perhaps I should say the necessity, to
slumber for an hour after the noon meal. Certainly sleep descending on
the tropical traveller is armed with a bludgeon. Passengers, crew,
steerage, "deck," animal, and bird fall down then in an enchantment. I
have often wondered who navigates the ship during that sacred hour, or,
indeed, if anybody navigates it at all. Perhaps that time is sacred to
the genii of the old East, who close all prying mortal eyes, but in
return lend a guiding hand to the most pressing of mortal affairs. The
deck of the ship is a curious sight between the hours of half-past one
and three. The tropical siesta requires no couching of the form. You sit
down in your chair, with a book--you fade slowly into a deep, restful
slumber. And yet it is a slumber wherein certain small pleasant things
persist from the world outside. You remain dimly conscious of the
rhythmic throbbing of the engines, of the beat of soft, warm air on your
cheek.

At three o'clock or thereabout you rise as gently back to life, and sit
erect in your chair without a stretch or a yawn in your whole anatomy.
Then is the one time of day for a display of energy--if you have any to
display. Ship games, walks--fairly brisk--explorations to the
forecastle, a watch for flying fish or Arab dhows, anything until
tea-time. Then the glowing sunset; the opalescent sea, and the soft
afterglow of the sky--and the bugle summoning you to dress. That is a
mean job. Nothing could possibly swelter worse than the tiny cabin. The
electric fan is an aggravation. You reappear in your fresh "whites"
somewhat warm and flustered in both mind and body. A turn around the
deck cools you off; and dinner restores your equanimity--dinner with the
soft, warm tropic air breathing through all the wide-open ports; the
electric fans drumming busily; the men all in clean white; the ladies,
the very few precious ladies, in soft, low gowns. After dinner the deck,
as near cool as it will be, and heads bare to the breeze of our
progress, and glowing cigars. At ten or eleven o'clock the groups begin
to break up, the canvas chairs to empty. Soon reappears a pyjamaed
figure followed by a steward carrying a mattress. This is spread, under
its owner's direction, in a dark corner forward. With a sigh you in your
turn plunge down into the sweltering inferno of your cabin, only to
reappear likewise with a steward and a mattress. The latter, if you are
wise, you spread where the wind of the ship's going will be full upon
you. It is a strong wind and blows upon you heavily, so that the sleeves
and legs of your pyjamas flop, but it is a soft, warm wind, and beats
you as with muffled fingers. In no temperate clime can you ever enjoy
this peculiar effect of a strong breeze on your naked skin without even
the faintest surface chilly sensation. So habituated has one become to
feeling cooler in a draught that the absence of chill lends the night an
unaccustomedness, the more weird in that it is unanalyzed, so that one
feels definitely that one is in a strange, far country. This is
intensified by the fact that in these latitudes the moon, the great,
glorious, calm tropical moon, is directly overhead--follows the centre
line of the zenith--instead of being, as with us in our temperate zone,
always more or less declined to the horizon. This, too, lends the night
an exotic quality, the more effective in that at first the reason for it
is not apprehended.

A night in the tropics is always more or less broken. One awakens, and
sleeps again. Motionless white-clad figures, cigarettes glowing, are
lounging against the rail looking out over a molten sea. The moonlight
lies in patterns across the deck, shivering slightly under the throb of
the engines, or occasionally swaying slowly forward or slowly back as
the ship's course changes, but otherwise motionless, for here the sea is
always calm. You raise your head, look about, sprawl in a new position
on your mattress, fall asleep. On one of these occasions you find
unexpectedly that the velvet-gray night has become steel-gray dawn, and
that the kindly old quartermaster is bending over you. Sleepily, very
sleepily, you stagger to your feet and collapse into the nearest chair.
Then to the swish of water, as the sailors sluice the decks all around
and under you, you fall into a really deep sleep.

At six o'clock this is broken by chota-hazri, another tropical
institution, consisting merely of clear tea and biscuits. I never could
get to care for it, but nowhere in the tropics could I head it off. No
matter how tired I was or how dead sleepy, I had to receive that
confounded chota-hazri. Throwing things at the native who brought it did
no good at all. He merely dodged. Admonition did no good, nor
prohibition in strong terms. I was but one white man of the whole white
race; and I had no right to possess idiosyncrasies running counter to
dastur, the custom. However, as the early hours are profitable hours in
the tropics, it did not drive me to homicide.

The ship's company now developed. Our two prize members, fortunately for
us, sat at our table. The first was the Swedish professor
aforementioned. He was large, benign, paternal, broad in mind,
thoroughly human and beloved, and yet profoundly erudite. He was our
iconoclast in the way of food; for he performed small but illuminating
dissections on his plate, and announced triumphantly results that were
not a bit in accordance with the menu. A single bone was sufficient to
take the pretension out of any fish. Our other particular friend was C.,
with whom later we travelled in the interior of Africa. C. is a very
celebrated hunter and explorer, an old Africander, his face seamed and
tanned by many years in a hard climate. For several days we did not
recognize him, although he sat fairly alongside, but put him down as a
shy man, and let it go at that. He never stayed for the long _table
d'hôte_ dinners, but fell upon the first solid course and made a
complete meal from that. When he had quite finished eating all he
could, he drank all he could; then he departed from the table, and took
up a remote and inaccessible position in the corner of the smoking-room.
He was engaged in growing the beard he customarily wore in the jungle--a
most fierce outstanding Mohammedan-looking beard that terrified the
intrusive into submission. And yet Bwana C. possesses the kindest blue
eyes in the world, full of quiet patience, great understanding, and
infinite gentleness. His manner was abrupt and uncompromising, but he
would do anything in the world for one who stood in need of him. From
women he fled; yet Billy won him with infinite patience, and in the
event they became the closest of friends. Withal he possessed a pair of
the most powerful shoulders I have ever seen on a man of his frame; and
in the depths of his mild blue eyes flickered a flame of resolution that
I could well imagine flaring up to something formidable. Slow to make
friends, but staunch and loyal; gentle and forbearing, but fierce and
implacable in action; at once loved and most terribly feared; shy as a
wild animal, but straightforward and undeviating in his human relations;
most remarkably quiet and unassuming, but with tremendous vital force in
his deep eyes and forward-thrust jaw; informed with the widest and most
understanding humanity, but unforgiving of evildoers; and with the most
direct and absolute courage, Bwana C. was to me the most interesting man
I met in Africa, and became the best of my friends.

The only other man at our table happened to be, for our sins, the young
Englishman mentioned as throwing the first coin to the old woman on the
pier at Marseilles. We will call him Brown, and, because he represents a
type, he is worth looking upon for a moment.

He was of the super-enthusiastic sort; bubbling over with vitality, in
and out of everything; bounding up at odd and languid moments. To an
extraordinary extent he was afflicted with the spiritual blindness of
his class. Quite genuinely, quite seriously, he was unconscious of the
human significance of beings and institutions belonging to a foreign
country or even to a class other than his own. His own kind he treated
as complete and understandable human creatures. All others were merely
objective. As we, to a certain extent, happened to fall in the former
category, he was as pleasant to us as possible--that is, he was pleasant
to us in his way, but had not insight enough to guess at how to be
pleasant to us in our way. But as soon as he got out of his own class,
or what he conceived to be such, he considered all people as
"outsiders." He did not credit them with prejudices to rub, with
feelings to hurt, indeed hardly with ears to overhear. Provided his
subject was an "outsider," he had not the slightest hesitancy in saying
exactly what he thought about any one, anywhere, always in his high
clear English voice, no matter what the time or occasion. As a natural
corollary he always rebuffed beggars and the like brutally, and was
always quite sublimely doing little things that thoroughly shocked our
sense of the other fellow's rights as a human being. In all this he did
not mean to be cruel or inconsiderate. It was just the way he was built;
and it never entered his head that "such people" had ears and brains.

In the rest of the ship's company were a dozen or so other Englishmen of
the upper classes, either army men on shooting trips, or youths going
out with some idea of settling in the country. They were a clean-built,
pleasant lot; good people to know anywhere, but of no unusual interest.
It was only when one went abroad into the other nations that inscribable
human interest could be found.

There was the Greek, Scutari, and his bride, a languorous rather
opulent beauty, with large dark eyes for all men, and a luxurious manner
of lying back and fanning herself. She talked, soft-voiced, in half a
dozen languages, changing from one to the other without a break in
either her fluency or her thought. Her little lithe, active husband sat
around and adored her. He was apparently a very able citizen indeed, for
he was going out to take charge of the construction work on a German
railway. To have filched so important a job from the Germans themselves
shows that he must have had ability. With them were a middle-aged
Holland couple, engaged conscientiously in travelling over the globe.
They had been everywhere--the two American hemispheres, from one Arctic
Sea to another, Siberia, China, the Malay Archipelago, this, that, and
the other odd corner of the world. Always they sat placidly side by
side, either in the saloon or on deck, smiling benignly, and conversing
in spaced, comfortable syllables with everybody who happened along. Mrs.
Breemen worked industriously on some kind of feminine gear, and
explained to all and sundry that she travelled "to see de sceenery wid
my hoos-band."

Also in this group was a small wiry German doctor, who had lived for
many years in the far interior of Africa, and was now returning after
his vacation. He was a little man, bright-eyed and keen, with a clear
complexion and hard flesh, in striking and agreeable contrast to most of
his compatriots. The latter were trying to drink all the beer on the
ship; but as she had been stocked for an eighty-day voyage, of which
this was but the second week, they were not making noticeable headway.
However, they did not seem to be easily discouraged. The Herr Doktor was
most polite and attentive, but as we did not talk German nor much
Swahili, and he had neither English nor much French, we had our
difficulties. I have heard Billy in talking to him scatter fragments of
these four languages through a single sentence!

For several days we drifted down a warm flat sea. Then one morning we
came on deck to find ourselves close aboard a number of volcanic
islands. They were composed entirely of red and dark purple lava blocks,
rugged, quite without vegetation save for occasional patches of stringy
green in a gully; and uninhabited except for a lighthouse on one, and a
fishing shanty near the shores of another. The high mournful mountains,
with their dark shadows, seemed to brood over hot desolation. The rusted
and battered stern of a wrecked steamer stuck up at an acute angle from
the surges. Shortly after we picked up the shores of Arabia.

Note the advantages of a half ignorance. From early childhood we had
thought of Arabia as the "burning desert"--flat, of course--and of the
Red Sea as bordered by "shifting sands" alone. If we had known the
truth--if we had not been half ignorant--we would have missed the
profound surprise of discovering that in reality the Red Sea is bordered
by high and rugged mountains, leaving just space enough between
themselves and the shore for a sloping plain on which our glasses could
make out occasional palms. Perhaps the "shifting sands of the burning
desert" lie somewhere beyond; but somebody might have mentioned these
great mountains! After examining them attentively we had to confess that
if this sort of thing continued farther north the children of Israel
must have had a very hard time of it. Mocha shone white, glittering, and
low, with the red and white spire of a mosque rising brilliantly above
it.




VI.

ADEN.


It was cooler; and for a change we had turned into our bunks, when B.
pounded on our stateroom door.

"In the name of the Eternal East," said he, "come on deck!"

We slipped on kimonos, and joined the row of scantily draped and
interested figures along the rail.

The ship lay quite still on a perfect sea of moonlight, bordered by a
low flat distant shore on one side, and nearer mountains on the other. A
strong flare, centred from two ship reflectors overside, made a focus of
illumination that subdued, but could not quench, the soft moonlight with
which all outside was silvered. A dozen boats, striving against a
current or clinging as best they could to the ship's side, glided into
the light and became real and solid; or dropped back into the ghostly
white unsubstantiality of the moon. They were long, narrow boats, with
small flush decks fore and aft. We looked down on them from almost
directly above, so that we saw the thwarts and the ribs and the things
they contained.

Astern in each stood men, bending gracefully against the thrust of long
sweeps. About their waists were squares of cloth, wrapped twice and
tucked in. Otherwise they were naked, and the long smooth muscles of
their slender bodies rippled under the skin. The latter was of a
beautiful fine texture, and chocolate brown. These men had keen,
intelligent, clear-cut faces, of the Greek order, as though the statues
of a garden had been stained brown and had come to life. They leaned on
their sweeps, thrusting slowly but strongly against the little wind and
current that would drift them back.

In the body of the boats crouched, sat, or lay a picturesque mob. Some
pulled spasmodically on the very long limber oars; others squatted doing
nothing; some, huddled shapelessly underneath white cloths that
completely covered them, slept soundly in the bottom. We took these for
merchandise until one of them suddenly threw aside his covering and sat
up. Others, again, poised in proud and graceful attitudes on the
extreme prows of their bobbing craft. Especially decorative were two,
clad only in immense white turbans and white cloths about the waist. An
old Arab with a white beard stood midships in one boat, quite
motionless, except for the slight swaying necessary to preserve his
equilibrium, his voluminous white draperies fluttering in the wind, his
dark face just distinguishable under his burnouse. Most of the men were
Somalis, however. Their keen small faces, slender but graceful necks,
slim, well-formed torsos bending to every movement of the boat, and the
white or gaudy draped nether garments were as decorative as the figures
on an Egyptian tomb. One or two of the more barbaric had made neat
headdresses of white clay plastered in the form of a skull-cap.

After an interval a small and fussy tugboat steamed around our stern and
drew alongside the gangway. Three passengers disembarked from her and
made their way aboard. The main deck of the craft under an awning was
heavily encumbered with trunks, tin boxes, hand baggage, tin bath-tubs,
gun cases, and all sorts of impedimenta. The tugboat moored itself to us
fore and aft, and proceeded to think about discharging. Perhaps twenty
men in accurate replica of those in the small boats had charge of the
job. They had their own methods. After a long interval devoted strictly
to nothing, some unfathomable impulse would incite one or two or three
of the natives to tackle a trunk. At it they tugged and heaved and
pushed in the manner of ants making off with a particularly large fly or
other treasure trove, tossing it up the steep gangway to the level of
our decks. The trunks once safely bestowed, all interest, all industry,
died. We thought that finished it, and wondered why the tug did not pull
out of the way. But always, after an interval, another bright idea would
strike another native or natives. He--or they--would disappear beneath
the canvas awning over the tug's deck, to emerge shortly, carrying
almost anything, from a parasol to a heavy chest.

On close inspection they proved to be a very small people. The
impression of graceful height had come from the slenderness and justness
of their proportions, the smallness of their bones, and the upright
grace of their carriage. After standing alongside one, we acquired a
fine respect for their ability to handle those trunks at all.

Moored to the other side of the ship we found two huge lighters, from
which bales of goods were being hoisted aboard. Two camels and a dozen
diminutive mules stood in the waist of one of these craft. The camels
were as sniffy and supercilious and scornful as camels always are; and
everybody promptly hated them with the hatred of the abysmally inferior
spirit for something that scorns it, as is the usual attitude of the
human mind towards camels. We waited for upwards of an hour, in the hope
of seeing those camels hoisted aboard; but in vain. While we were so
waiting one of the deck passengers below us, a Somali in white clothes
and a gorgeous cerise turban, decided to turn in. He spread a square of
thin matting atop one of the hatches, and began to unwind yards and
yards of the fine silk turban. He came to the end of it--whisk! he sank
to the deck; the turban, spread open by the resistance of the air,
fluttered down to cover him from head to foot. Apparently he fell asleep
at once, for he did not again move nor alter his position. He, as well
as an astonishingly large proportion of the other Somalis and
Abyssinians we saw, carried a queer, well-defined, triangular wound in
his head. It had long since healed, was an inch or so across, and looked
as though a piece of the skull had been removed. If a conscientious
enemy had leisure and an icepick he would do just about that sort of a
job. How its recipient had escaped instant death is a mystery.

At length, about three o'clock, despairing of the camels, we turned in.

After three hours' sleep we were again on deck. Aden by daylight seemed
to be several sections of a town tucked into pockets in bold, raw, lava
mountains that came down fairly to the water's edge. Between these
pockets ran a narrow shore road; and along the road paced haughty camels
hitched to diminutive carts. On contracted round bluffs towards the sea
were various low bungalow buildings which, we were informed, comprised
the military and civil officers' quarters. The real Aden has been built
inland a short distance at the bottom of a cup in the mountains.
Elaborate stone reservoirs have been constructed to catch rain water, as
there is no other natural water supply whatever. The only difficulty is
that it practically never rains; so the reservoirs stand empty, the
water is distilled from the sea, and the haughty camels and the little
carts do the distributing.

The lava mountains occupy one side of the spacious bay or gulf. The
foot of the bay and the other side are flat, with one or two very
distant white villages, and many heaps of glittering salt as big as
houses.

We waited patiently at the rail for an hour more to see the camels slung
aboard by the crane. It was worth the wait. They lost their impassive
and immemorial dignity completely, sprawling, groaning, positively
shrieking in dismay. When the solid deck rose to them, and the sling had
been loosened, however, they regained their poise instantaneously. Their
noses went up in the air, and they looked about them with a challenging,
unsmiling superiority, as though to dare any one of us to laugh. Their
native attendants immediately squatted down in front of them, and began
to feed them with convenient lengths of what looked like our common
marsh cat-tails. The camels did not even then manifest the slightest
interest in the proceedings. Indeed, they would not condescend to reach
out three inches for the most luscious tit-bit held that far from their
aristocratic noses. The attendants had actually to thrust the fodder
between their jaws. I am glad to say they condescended to chew.




VII.

THE INDIAN OCEAN.


Leaving Aden, and rounding the great promontory of Cape Guardafui, we
turned south along the coast of Africa. Off the cape were strange, oily
cross rips and currents on the surface of the sea; the flying-fish rose
in flocks before our bows; high mountains of peaks and flat table tops
thrust their summits into clouds; and along the coast the breakers
spouted like whales. For the first time, too, we began to experience
what our preconceptions had imagined as tropical heat. Heretofore we had
been hot enough, in all conscience, but the air had felt as though
wafted from an opened furnace door--dry and scorching. Now, although the
temperature was lower,[2] the humidity was greater. A swooning languor
was abroad over the spellbound ocean, a relaxing mist of enchantment.

My glasses were constantly clouding over with a fine coating of water
drops; exposed metal rusted overnight; the folds in garments accumulated
mildew in an astonishingly brief period of time. There was never even
the suggestion of chill in this dampness. It clung and enveloped like a
grateful garment; and seemed only to lack sweet perfume.

At this time, by good fortune, it happened that the moon came full. We
had enjoyed its waxing during our voyage down the Red Sea; but now it
had reached its greatest phase, and hung over the slumbering tropic
ocean like a lantern. The lazy sea stirred beneath it, and the ship
glided on, its lights fairly subdued by the splendour of the waters.
Under the awnings the ship's company lounged in lazy attitudes or
promenaded slowly, talking low voiced, cigars glowing in the splendid
dusk. Overside, in the furrow of the disturbed waters, the
phosphorescence flashed perpetually beneath the shadow of the ship.

The days passed by languidly and all alike. On the chart outside the
smoking-room door the procession of tiny German flags on pins marched
steadily, an inch at a time, towards the south. Otherwise we might as
well have imagined ourselves midgets afloat in a pond and getting
nowhere.

Somewhere north of the equator--before Father Neptune in ancient style
had come aboard and ducked the lot of us--we were treated to the
spectacle of how the German "sheep" reacts under a joke. Each nation has
its type of fool; and all, for the joyousness of mankind, differ. On the
bulletin board one evening appeared a notice to the effect that the
following morning a limited number of sportsmen would be permitted
ashore for the day. Each was advised to bring his own lunch, rifle, and
drinks. The reason alleged was that the ship must round a certain cape
across which the sportsmen could march afoot in sufficient time to
permit them a little shooting.

Now aboard ship were a dozen English, four Americans, and thirty or
forty Germans. The Americans and English looked upon that bulletin,
smiled gently, and went to order another round of lemon squashes. It was
a meek, mild, little joke enough; but surely the bulletin board was as
far as it could possibly go. Next morning, however, we observed a
half-dozen of our German friends in khaki and sun helmet, very busy with
lunch boxes, bottles of beer, rifles, and the like. They said they were
going ashore as per bulletin. We looked at each other and hied us to the
upper deck. There we found one of the boats slung overside, with our old
friend the quartermaster ostentatiously stowing kegs of water, boxes,
and the like.

"When," we inquired gently, "does the expedition start?"

"At ten o'clock," said he.

It was now within fifteen minutes of that hour.

We were at the time fully ten miles off shore, and forging ahead full
speed parallel with the coast.

We pointed out this fact to the quartermaster, but found, to our sorrow,
that the poor old man had suddenly gone deaf! We therefore refrained
from asking several other questions that had occurred to us--such as,
why the cape was not shown on the map.

"Somebody," said one of the Americans, a cowboy going out second class
on the look for new cattle country, "is a goat. It sure looks to me like
it was these yere steamboat people. They can't expect to rope nothing on
such a raw deal as this!"

To which the English assented, though in different idiom.

But now up the companion ladder struggled eight serious-minded
individuals herded by the second mate. They were armed to the teeth, and
thoroughly equipped with things I had seen in German catalogues, but in
whose existence I had never believed. A half-dozen sailors eagerly
helped them with their multitudinous effects. Not a thought gave they to
the fact that we were ten miles off the coast, that we gave no
indication of slackening speed, that it would take the rest of the day
to row ashore, that there was no cape for us to round, that if there
were--oh! all the other hundred improbabilities peculiar to the
situation. Under direction of the mate they deposited their impedimenta
beneath a tarpaulin, and took their places in solemn rows amidships
across the thwarts of the boat slung overside. The importance of the
occasion sat upon them heavily; they were going ashore--in Africa--to
Slay Wild Beasts. They looked upon themselves as of bolder, sterner
stuff than the rest of us.

When the procession first appeared, our cowboy's face for a single
instant had flamed with amazed incredulity. Then a mask of
expressionless stolidity fell across his features, which in no line
thereafter varied one iota.

"What are they going to do with them?" murmured one of the Englishmen,
at a loss.

"I reckon," said the cowboy, "that they look on this as the easiest way
to drown them all to onct."

Then from behind one of the other boats suddenly appeared a huge German
sailor with a hose. The devoted imbeciles in the shore boat were
drenched as by a cloud-burst. Back and forth and up and down the heavy
stream played, while every other human being about the ship shrieked
with joy. Did the victims rise up in a body and capture that hose nozzle
and turn the stream to sweep the decks? Did they duck for shelter? Did
they at least know enough to scatter and run? They did none of these
things; but sat there in meek little rows like mannikins until the boat
was half full of water and everything awash. Then, when the sailor shut
off the stream, they continued to sit there until the mate came to order
them out. Why? I cannot tell you. Perhaps that is the German idea of how
to take a joke. Perhaps they were afraid worse things might be
consequent on resistance. Perhaps they still hoped to go ashore. One of
the Englishmen asked just that question.

"What," he demanded disgustedly, "what is the matter with the beggars?"

Our cowboy may have had the correct solution. He stretched his long
legs and jumped down from the rail.

"Nothing stirring above the ears," said he.

It is customary in books of travel to describe this part of the journey
somewhat as follows: "Skirting the low and uninteresting shores of
Africa we at length reached," etc. Low and uninteresting shores! Through
the glasses we made out distant mountains far beyond nearer hills. The
latter were green-covered with dense forests whence rose mysterious
smokes. Along the shore we saw an occasional cocoanut plantation to the
water's edge and native huts and villages of thatch. Canoes of strange
models lay drawn up on shelving beaches; queer fish-pounds of brush
reached out considerable distances from the coast. The white surf
pounded on a yellow beach.

All about these things was the jungle, hemming in the plantations and
villages, bordering the lagoons, creeping down until it fairly overhung
the yellow beaches; as though, conqueror through all the country beyond,
it were half-inclined to dispute dominion with old Ocean himself. It
looked from the distance like a thick, soft coverlet thrown down over
the country; following--or, rather, suggesting--the inequalities.
Through the glasses we were occasionally able to peep under the edge of
this coverlet, and see where the fringe of the jungle drew back in a
little pocket, or to catch the sheen of mysterious dark rivers slipping
to the sea. Up these dark rivers, by way of the entrances of these tiny
pockets, the imagination then could lead on into the dimness beneath the
sunlit upper surfaces.

Towards the close of one afternoon we changed our course slightly, and
swung in on a long slant towards the coast. We did it casually; too
casually for so very important an action, for now at last we were about
to touch the mysterious continent. Then we saw clearer the fine, big
groves of palm and the luxuriance of the tropical vegetation. Against
the greenery, bold and white, shone the buildings of Mombasa; and after
a little while we saw an inland glitter that represented her narrow,
deep bay, the stern of a wreck against the low, green cliffs, and
strange, fat-trunked squat trees without leaves. Straight past all this
we glided at half speed, then turned sharp to the right to enter a long
wide expanse like a river, with green banks, twenty feet or so in
height, grown thickly with the tall cocoanut palms. These gave way at
times into broad, low lagoons, at the end of which were small beaches
and boats, and native huts among more cocoanut groves. Through our
glasses we could see the black men watching us, quite motionless,
squatted on their heels.

It was like suddenly entering another world, this gliding from the open
sea straight into the heart of a green land. The ceaseless wash of waves
we had left outside with the ocean; our engines had fallen silent.
Across the hushed waters came to us strange chantings and the beating of
a tom-tom, an occasional shrill shout from the unknown jungle. The sun
was just set, and the tops of the palms caught the last rays; all below
was dense green shadow. Across the surface of the water glided dug-out
canoes of shapes strange to us. We passed ancient ruins almost
completely dismantled, their stones half smothered in green rank growth.
The wide river-like bay stretched on before us as far as the waning
light permitted us to see; finally losing itself in the heart of
mystery.

Steadily and confidently our ship steamed forward, until at last, when
we seemed to be afloat in a land-locked lake, we dropped anchor and came
to rest.

Darkness fell utterly before the usual quarantine regulations had been
carried through. Active and efficient agents had already taken charge
of our affairs, so we had only to wait idly by the rail until summoned.
Then we jostled our way down the long gangway, passed and repassed by
natives carrying baggage or returning for more baggage, stepped briskly
aboard a very bobby little craft, clambered over a huge pile of baggage,
and stowed ourselves as best we could. A figure in a long white robe sat
astern, tiller ropes in hand; two half-naked blacks far up towards the
prow manipulated a pair of tremendous sweeps. With a vast heaving,
jabbering, and shouting, our boat disengaged itself from the swarm of
other craft. We floated around the stern of our ship, and were
immediately suspended in blackness dotted with the stars and their
reflections, and with various twinkling scattered lights. To one of
these we steered, and presently touched at a stone quay with steps. At
last we set foot on the land to which so long we had journeyed and
towards which our expectations had grown so great. We experienced "the
pleasure that touches the souls of men landing on strange shores."

FOOTNOTES:

[2] 82-88° degrees in daytime, and 75-83° degrees at night.




VIII.

MOMBASA.


A single light shone at the end of the stone quay, and another inside a
big indeterminate building at some distance. We stumbled towards this,
and found it to be the biggest shed ever constructed out of corrugated
iron. A bearded Sikh stood on guard at its open entrance. He let any one
and every one enter, with never a flicker of his expressionless black
eyes; but allowed no one to go out again without the closest scrutiny
for dutiable articles that lacked the blue customs plaster. We entered.
The place was vast and barnlike and dim, and very, very hot. A
half-dozen East Indians stood behind the counters; another, a babu, sat
at a little desk ready to give his clerical attention to what might be
required. We saw no European; but next morning found that one passed his
daylight hours in this inferno of heat. For the moment we let our main
baggage go, and occupied ourselves only with getting through our smaller
effects. This accomplished, we stepped out past the Sikh into the
grateful night.

We had as guide a slender and wiry individual clad in tarboush and long
white robe. In a vague, general way we knew that the town of Mombasa was
across the island and about four miles distant. In what direction or how
we got there we had not the remotest idea.

The guide set off at a brisk pace with which we tried in vain to keep
step. He knew the ground, and we did not; and the night was black dark.
Commands to stop were of no avail whatever; nor could we get hold of him
to restrain him by force. When we put on speed he put on speed too. His
white robe glimmered ahead of us just in sight; and in the darkness
other white robes, passing and crossing, glimmered also. At first the
ground was rough, so that we stumbled outrageously. Billy and B. soon
fell behind, and I heard their voices calling plaintively for us to slow
down a bit.

"If I ever lose this nigger, I'll never find him again," I shouted back,
"but I can find you. Do the best you can!"

We struck a smoother road that led up a hill on a long slant.
Apparently for miles we followed thus, the white-robed individual ahead
still deaf to all commands and the blood-curdling threats I had now come
to uttering. All our personal baggage had long since mysteriously
disappeared, ravished away from us at the customs house by a ragged
horde of blacks. It began to look as though we were stranded in Africa
without baggage or effects. Billy and B. were all the time growing
fainter in the distance, though evidently they too had struck the long,
slanting road.

Then we came to a dim, solitary lantern glowing feebly beside a bench at
what appeared to be the top of the hill. Here our guide at last came to
a halt and turned to me a grinning face.

"Samama hapa," he observed.

There! That was the word I had been frantically searching my memory for!
Samama--stop!

The others struggled in. We were very warm. Up to the bench led a tiny
car track, the rails not over two feet apart, like the toy railroads
children use. This did not look much like grownup transportation, but it
and the bench and the dim lantern represented all the visible world.

We sat philosophically on the bench and enjoyed the soft tropical
night. The air was tepid, heavy with unknown perfume, black as a band of
velvet across the eyes, musical with the subdued undertones of a
thousand thousand night insects. At points overhead the soft blind
darkness melted imperceptibly into stars.

After a long interval we distinguished a distant faint rattling, that
each moment increased in loudness. Shortly came into view along the
narrow tracks a most extraordinary vehicle. It was a small square
platform on wheels, across which ran a bench seat, and over which spread
a canopy. It carried also a dim lantern. This rumbled up to us and
stopped. From its stern hopped two black boys. Obeying a smiling
invitation, we took our places on the bench. The two boys immediately
set to pushing us along the narrow track.

We were off at an astonishing speed through the darkness. The night was
deliciously tepid; and, as I have said, absolutely dark. We made out the
tops of palms and the dim loom of great spreading trees, and could smell
sweet, soft odours. The bare-headed, lightly-clad boys pattered
alongside whenever the grade was easy, one hand resting against the
rail; or pushed mightily up little hills; or clung alongside like
monkeys while we rattled and swooped and plunged down hill into the
darkness. Subsequently we learned that a huge flat beam projecting
amidships from beneath the seat operated a brake which we above were
supposed to manipulate; but being quite ignorant as to the ethics and
mechanics of this strange street-car system, we swung and swayed at
times quite breathlessly.

After about fifteen minutes we began to pick up lights ahead, then to
pass dimly-seen garden walls with trees whose brilliant flowers the
lantern revealed fitfully. At last we made out white stucco houses, and
shortly drew up with a flourish before the hotel itself.

This was a two-story stucco affair, with deep verandas sunken in at each
story. It fronted a wide white street facing a public garden; and this,
we subsequently discovered, was about the only clear and open space in
all the narrow town. Antelope horns were everywhere hung on the walls;
and teakwood easy-chairs, with rests on which comfortably to elevate
your feet above your head, stood all about. We entered a bare,
brick-floored dining-room, and partook of tropical fruits quite new to
us--papayes, mangoes, custard apples, pawpaws, and the small red eating
bananas too delicate for export. Overhead the punkahs swung back and
forth in lazy hypnotic rhythm. We could see the two blacks at the ends
of the punkah cords outside on the veranda, their bodies swaying lithely
in alternation as they threw their weight against the light ropes. Other
blacks, in the long white robes and exquisitely worked white skull caps
of the Swahili, glided noiselessly on bare feet, serving.

After dinner we sat out until midnight in the teakwood chairs of the
upper gallery, staring through the arches into the black, mysterious
night, for it was very hot, and we rather dreaded the necessary mosquito
veils as likely to prove stuffy. The mosquitoes are few in Mombasa, but
they are very deadly--very. At midnight the thermometer stood 87° F.

Our premonitions as to stuffiness were well justified. After a restless
night we came awake at daylight to the sound of a fine row of some sort
going on outside in the streets. Immediately we arose, threw aside the
lattices, and hung out over the sill.

The chalk-white road stretched before us. Opposite was a public square,
grown with brilliant flowers, and flowering trees. We could not doubt
the cause of the trouble. An Indian on a bicycle, hurrying to his
office, had knocked down a native child. Said child, quite naked, sat
in the middle of the white dust and howled to rend the heavens--whenever
he felt himself observed. If, however, the attention of the crowd
happened for the moment to be engrossed with the babu, the injured one
sat up straight and watched the row with interested, rolling, pickaninny
eyes. A native policeman made the centre of a whirling, vociferating
group. He was a fine-looking chap, straight and soldierly, dressed in
red tarboosh, khaki coat bound close around the waist by yards and yards
of broad red webbing, loose, short drawers of khaki, bare knees and
feet, and blue puttees between. His manner was inflexible. The babu
jabbered excitedly; telling, in all probability, how he was innocent of
fault, was late for his work, etc. In vain. He had to go; also the kid,
who now, seeing himself again an object of interest, recommenced his
howling. Then the babu began frantically to indicate members of the
crowd whom he desired to retain as witnesses. Evidently not pleased with
the prospect of appearing in court, those indicated promptly ducked and
ran. The policeman as promptly pursued and collared them one by one. He
was a long-legged policeman, and he ran well. The moment he laid hands
on a fugitive, the latter collapsed; whereupon the policeman dropped him
and took after another. The joke of it was that the one so abandoned did
not try again to make off, but stayed as though he had been tagged at
some game. Finally the whole lot, still vociferating, moved off down the
white road.

For over an hour we hung from our window sill, thoroughly interested and
amused by the varied life that deployed before our eyes. The morning
seemed deliciously cool after the hot night, although the thermometer
stood high. The sky was very blue, with big piled white clouds down near
the horizon. Dazzling sun shone on the white road, the white buildings
visible up and down the street, the white walls enclosing their gardens,
and the greenery and colours of the trees within them. For from what we
could see from our window we immediately voted tropical vegetation quite
up to advertisement: whole trees of gaudy red or yellow or bright orange
blossoms, flowering vines, flowering shrubs, peered over the walls or
through the fences; and behind them rose great mangoes or the slenderer
shafts of bananas and cocoanut palms.

Up and down wandered groups of various sorts of natives. A month later
we would have been able to identify their different tribes and to know
more about them; but now we wondered at them, as strange and
picturesque peoples. They impressed us in general as being a fine lot of
men, for they were of good physique, carried themselves well, and looked
about them with a certain dignity and independence, a fine free pride of
carriage and of step. This fact alone differentiated them from our own
negroes; but, further, their features were in general much finer, and
their skins of a clear mahogany beautiful in its satiny texture.
Most--and these were the blackest--wore long white robes and fine
openwork skull caps. They were the local race, the Swahili, had we but
known it; the original "Zanzibari" who furnished Livingstone, Stanley,
Speke, and the other early explorers with their men. Others, however,
were much less "civilized." We saw one "Cook's tour from the jungle"
consisting of six savages, their hair twisted into innumerable points,
their ear lobes stretched to hang fairly to their shoulders, wearing
only a rather neglectful blanket, adorned with polished wire, carrying
war clubs and bright spears. They followed, with eyes and mouths open, a
very sophisticated-looking city cousin in the usual white garments,
swinging a jaunty, light bamboo cane. The cane seems to be a
distinguishing mark of the leisured class. It not only means that you
are not working, but also that you have no earthly desire to work.

About this time one of the hotel boys brought the inevitable
chota-hazri--the tea and biscuits of early morning. For this once it was
very welcome.

Our hotel proved to be on the direct line of freighting. There are no
horses or draught animals in Mombasa; the fly is too deadly. Therefore
all hauling is done by hand. The tiny tracks of the unique street car
system run everywhere any one would wish to go; branching off even into
private grounds and to the very front doors of bungalows situated far
out of town. Each resident owns his own street car, just as elsewhere a
man has his own carriage. There are, of course, public cars also, each
with its pair of boys to push it; and also a number of rather decrepit
rickshaws. As a natural corollary to the passenger traffic, the
freighting also is handled by the blacks on large flat trucks with short
guiding poles. These men are quite naked save for a small loin cloth;
are beautifully shaped; and glisten all over with perspiration shining
in the sun. So fine is the texture of their skins, the softness of their
colour--so rippling the play of muscles--that this shining perspiration
is like a beautiful polish. They rush from behind, slowly and steadily,
and patiently and unwaveringly, the most tremendous loads of the
heaviest stuffs. When the hill becomes too steep for them, they turn
their backs against the truck; and by placing one foot behind the other,
a few inches at a time, they edge their burden up the slope.

The steering is done by one man at the pole or tongue in front. This
individual also sets the key to the song by which in Africa all heavy
labour is carried forward. He cries his wavering shrill-voiced chant;
the toilers utter antiphony in low gruff tones. At a distance one hears
only the wild high syncopated chanting; but as the affair draws slowly
nearer, he catches the undertone of the responses. These latter are cast
in the regular swing and rhythm of effort; but the steersman throws in
his bit at odd and irregular intervals. Thus:

Headman (shrill): "Hay, ah mon!"

Pushers (gruff in rhythm): "Tunk!--tunk!--tunk!--" or:

Headman (and wavering minor chant): "Ah--nah--nee--e-e-e!"

Pushers (undertone): "Umbwa--jo-e! Um-bwa--jo--e!"

These wild and barbaric chantings--in the distance; near at hand; dying
into distance again--slow, dogged, toilsome, came to be to us one of the
typical features of the place.

After breakfast we put on our sun helmets and went forth curiously to
view the town. We found it roughly divided into four quarters--the old
Portuguese, the Arabic, the European, and the native. The Portuguese
comprises the outer fringe next the water-front of the inner bay. It is
very narrow of street, with whitewashed walls, balconies, and wonderful
carven and studded doors. The business of the town is done here. The
Arabic quarter lies back of it--a maze of narrow alleys winding
aimlessly here and there between high white buildings, with occasionally
the minarets and towers of a mosque. This district harboured, besides
the upper-class Swahilis and Arabs, a large number of East Indians.
Still back of this are thousands of the low grass, or mud and wattle
huts of the natives, their roofs thatched with straw or palm. These are
apparently arranged on little system. The small European population
lives atop the sea bluffs beyond the old fort in the most attractive
bungalows. This, the most desirable location of all, has remained open
to them because heretofore the fierce wars with which Mombasa, "the
Island of Blood," has been swept have made the exposed seaward lands
impossible.

No idle occupation can be more fascinating than to wander about the
mazes of this ancient town. The variety of race and occupation is
something astounding. Probably the one human note that, everywhere
persisting, draws the whole together is furnished by the water-carriers.
Mombasa has no water system whatever. The entire supply is drawn from
numberless picturesque wells scattered everywhere in the crowded centre,
and distributed mainly in Standard Oil cans suspended at either end of a
short pole. By dint of constant daily exercise, hauling water up from a
depth and carrying it various distances, these men have developed the
most beautifully powerful figures. They proceed at a half trot, the
slender poles, with forty pounds at either end, seeming fairly to cut
into their naked shoulders, muttering a word of warning to the loiterers
at every other breath--semeelay! semeelay! No matter in what part of
Mombasa you may happen to be, or at what hour of the day or night, you
will meet these industrious little men trotting along under their
burdens.

Everywhere also are the women, carrying themselves proudly erect, with a
free swing of the hips. They wear invariably a single sheet of cotton
cloth printed in blue or black with the most astonishing borders and
spotty designs. This is drawn tight just above the breasts, leaving the
shoulders and arms bare. Their hair is divided into perhaps a dozen
parts running lengthwise of the head from the forehead to the nape of
the neck, after the manner of the stripes on a watermelon. Each part
then ends in a tiny twisted pigtail not over an inch long. The lobes of
their ears have been stretched until they hold thick round disks about
three inches in diameter, ornamented by concentric circles of different
colours, with a red bull's eye for a centre. The outer edges of the ears
are then further decorated with gold clasps set closely together. Many
bracelets, necklaces, and armlets complete the get-up. They are big
women, with soft velvety skins and a proud and haughty carriage--the
counterparts of the men in the white robes and caps.

By the way, it may be a good place here to remark that these garments,
and the patterned squares of cloth worn by the women, are invariably
most spotlessly clean.

These, we learned, were the Swahilis, the ruling class, the descendants
of the slave traders. Beside them are all sorts and conditions. Your
true savage pleased his own fancy as to dress and personal adornment.
The bushmen generally shaved the edges of their wool to leave a nice
close-fitting natural skull cap, wore a single blanket draped from one
shoulder, and carried a war club. The ear lobe seemed always to be
stretched; sometimes sufficiently to have carried a pint bottle. Indeed,
white marmalade jars seemed to be very popular wear. One ingenious
person had acquired a dozen of the sort of safety pins used to fasten
curtains to their rings. These he had snapped into the lobes, six on a
side.

We explored for some time. One of the Swahilis attached himself to us so
unobtrusively that before we knew it we had accepted him as guide. In
that capacity he realized an ideal, for he never addressed a word to us,
nor did he even stay in sight. We wandered along at our sweet will,
dawdling as slowly as we pleased. The guide had apparently quite
disappeared. Look where we would we could in no manner discover him. At
the next corner we would pause, undecided as to what to do; there, in
the middle distance, would stand our friend, smiling. When he was sure
we had seen him, and were about to take the turn properly, he would
disappear again. Convoyed in this pleasant fashion we wound and twisted
up and down and round and about through the most appalling maze. We saw
the native markets with their vociferating sellers seated cross-legged
on tables behind piles of fruit or vegetables, while an equally
vociferating crowd surged up and down the aisles. Gray parrots and
little monkeys perched everywhere about. Billy gave one of the monkeys a
banana. He peeled it exactly as a man would have done, smelt it
critically, and threw it back at her in the most insulting fashion. We
saw also the rows of Hindu shops open to the street, with their gaudily
dressed children of blackened eyelids, their stolid dirty proprietors,
and their women marvellous in bright silks and massive bangles. In the
thatched native quarter were more of the fine Swahili women sitting
cross-legged on the earth under low verandas, engaged in different
handicrafts; and chickens; and many amusing naked children. We made
friends with many of them, communicating by laughter and by signs, while
our guide stood unobtrusively in the middle distance waiting for us to
come on. Just at sunset he led us out to a great open space, with a tall
palm in the centre of it and the gathering of a multitude of people. A
mollah was clambering into a high scaffold built of poles, whence
shortly he began to intone a long-drawn-out "Allah! Allah! il Allah!"
The cocoanut palms cut the sunset, and the boabab trees--the fat, lazy
boababs--looked more monstrous than ever. We called our guide and
conferred on him the munificent sum of sixteen and a half cents; with
which, apparently much pleased, he departed. Then slowly we wandered
back to the hotel.




PART II.

THE SHIMBA HILLS.






IX.

A TROPICAL JUNGLE.


Many months later, and after adventures elsewhere described,[3] besides
others not relevant for the moment, F., an Englishman, and I returned to
Mombasa. We came from some hundred odd miles in the interior where we
had been exploring the sources and the course of the Tsavo River. Now
our purpose was to penetrate into the low, hot, wooded country along the
coast known as the Shimba Hills in quest of a rare beast called the
sable antelope.

These hills could be approached in one of two ways--by crossing the
harbour, and then marching two days afoot; or by voyaging up to the very
end of one of the long arms of the sea that extend many miles inland.
The latter involved dhows, dependence on uncertain winds, favourable
tides, and a heap of good luck. It was less laborious but most
uncertain. At this stage of the plan the hotel manager came forward with
the offer of a gasoline launch, which we gladly accepted.

We embarked about noon, storing our native carriers and effects aboard a
dhow hired for the occasion. This we purposed towing. A very neatly
uniformed Swahili bearing on his stomach a highly-polished brass label
as big as a door plate--"Harbour Police"--threw duck fists over what he
called overloading the boat. He knew very little about boats, but threw
very competent duck fists. As we did know something about boats, we
braved unknown consequences by disregarding him utterly. No consequences
ensued--unless perhaps to his own health. When everything was aboard,
that dhow was pretty well down, but still well afloat. Then we white men
took our places in the launch.

This was a long narrow affair with a four-cylinder thirty-horsepower
engine. As she possessed no speed gears, she had either to plunge ahead
full speed or come to a stop; there were no compromises. Her steering
was managed by a tiller instead of a wheel, so that a mere touch
sufficed to swerve her ten feet from her course. As the dhow was in no
respects built on such nervous lines, she did occasionally some fancy
and splashing curves.

The pilot of the launch turned out to be a sandy-haired Yankee who had
been catching wild animals for Barnum and Bailey's circus. While waiting
for his ship, he, being a proverbial handy Yankee, had taken on this
job. He became quite interested in telling us this, and at times forgot
his duties at the tiller. Then that racing-launch would take a wild
swoop; the clumsy old dhow astern would try vainly, with much spray and
dangerous careening, to follow; the compromise course would all but
upset her; the spray would fly; the safari boys would take their
ducking; the boat boys would yell and dance and lean frantically against
the two long sweeps with which they tried to steer. In this wild and
untrammelled fashion we careered up the bay, too interested in our own
performances to pay much attention to the scenery. The low shores, with
their cocoanut groves gracefully rising above the mangrove tangle,
slipped by, and the distant blue Shimba Hills came nearer.

After a while we turned into a narrower channel with a good many curves
and a quite unknown depth of water. Down this we whooped at the full
speed of our thirty-horsepower engine. Occasional natives, waist deep
and fishing, stared after us open-eyed. The Yankee ventured a guess as
to how hard she would hit on a mudbank. She promptly proved his guess a
rank underestimate by doing so. We fell in a heap on the bottom. The
dhow bore down on us with majestic momentum. The boat boys leaned
frantically on their sweeps, and managed just to avoid us. The dhow also
rammed the mudbank. A dozen reluctant boys hopped overboard and pushed
us off. We pursued our merry way again. On either hand now appeared fish
weirs of plaited coco fibre; which, being planted in the shallows,
helped us materially to guess at the channel. Naked men, up to their
shoulders in the water, attended to some mysterious need of the nets, or
emerged dripping and sparkling from the water with baskets of fish atop
their heads. The channel grew even narrower, and the mudbanks more
frequent. We dodged a dozen in our headlong course. Our local guide, a
Swahili in tarboosh and a beautiful saffron robe, showed signs of strong
excitement. We were to stop, he said, around the next bend; and at this
rate we never could stop. The Yankee remarked, superfluously, that it
would be handy if this dod-blistered engine had a clutch; adding, as an
afterthought, that no matter how long he stayed in the tropics his nose
peeled. We asked what we should do if we over-carried our prospective
landing-place. He replied that the dod-blistered thing did have a
reverse. While thus conversing we shot around a corner into a complete
cul-de-sac! Everything was shut off hastily, and an instant later we and
the dhow smashed up high and dry on a cozy mud beach! We drew a deep
breath and looked around us.

Mangrove thicket to the edge of the slimy ooze; trees behind--that was
all we could see. We gave our attention to the business of getting our
men, our effects, and ourselves ashore. The ooze proved to be just above
knee deep. The porters had a fearful and floundering time, and received
much obvious comment from us perched in the bow of the launch. Finally
everything was debarked. F. and I took off our boots; but our gunbearers
expressed such horror at the mere thought of our plunging into the mud,
that we dutifully climbed them pick-a-back and were carried. The hard
shell beach was a hundred feet away, occupying a little recess where the
persistent tough mangroves drew back. From it led a narrow path through
the thicket. We waved and shouted a farewell to the crews of the launch
and the dhow.

The path for a hundred feet was walled in by the mangroves through which
scuttled and rattled the big land crabs. Then suddenly we found
ourselves in a story-book tropical paradise. The tall coco palms rose
tufted above everything; the fans of the younger palms waved below;
bananas thrust the banners of their broad leaves wherever they could
find space; creepers and vines flung the lush luxuriance of their
greenery over all the earth and into the depths of all the half-guessed
shadows. In no direction could one see unobstructed farther than twenty
feet, except straight up; and there one could see just as far as the
tops of the palms. It was like being in a room--a green, hot, steamy,
lovely room. Very bright-coloured birds that ought really to have been
at home in their cages fluttered about.

We had much vigorous clearing to do to make room for our tents. By the
time the job was finished we were all pretty hot. Several of the boys
made vain attempts to climb for nuts, but without success. We had
brought them with us from the interior, where cocoanuts do not grow; and
they did not understand the method. They could swarm up the tall slim
stems all right, but could not manage to get through the
downward-pointing spikes of the dead leaves. F. tried and failed, to the
great amusement of the men, but to the greater amusement of myself. I
was a wise person, and lay on my back on a canvas cot, so it was not
much bother to look up and enjoy life. Not to earn absolutely the stigma
of laziness, I tried to shoot some nuts down. This did not work either,
for the soft, spongy stems closed around the bullet holes. Then a little
wizened monkey of a Swahili porter, having watched our futile
performances with interest, nonchalantly swarmed up; in some mysterious
manner he wriggled through the defences, and perched in the top, whence
he dropped to us a dozen big green nuts. Our men may not have been much
of a success at climbing for nuts; but they were passed masters at the
art of opening them. Three or four clips from their awkward swordlike
pangas, and we were each presented with a clean, beautiful, natural
goblet brimming full of a refreshing drink.

About this time a fine figure of a man drifted into camp. He was very
smooth-skinned, very dignified, very venerable. He was pure Swahili,
though of the savage branch of that race, and had none of the negro
type of countenance. In fact, so like was he in face, hair, short square
beard and genial dignity to a certain great-uncle of mine that it was
very hard to remember that he had on only a small strip of cloth, that
he was cherishing as a great treasure a piece of soap box he had
salvaged from the shore, and that his skin was red chocolate. I felt
inclined to talk to him as to an intellectual equal, especially as he
had a fine resonant bass voice that in itself lent his remarks some
importance. However, I gave him two ordinary wood screws, showed him how
they screwed in and out, and left him happy.

After supper the moon rose, casting shadows of new and unknown shapes
through this strangely new and unknown forest. A thin white mist
ascending everywhere from the soil tempered but could not obscure the
white brilliance. The thermometer stood now only at 82°, but the
dripping tropical sweat-bath in which our camp was pitched considerably
raised the sensible heat. A bird with a most diabolical shrieking note
cursed in the shadows. Another, a pigeon-like creature, began softly,
and continued to repeat in diminishing energy until it seemed to have
run down, like a piece of clockwork.

Our way next morning led for some time through this lovely but damp
jungle. Then we angled up the side of a hill to emerge into the
comparatively open country atop what we Westerners would call a "hog's
back"--a long narrow spurlike ridge mounting slowly to the general
elevation of the main hills. Here were high green bushes, with little
free open passages between them, and occasionally meadow-like openings
running down the slopes on one side or the other. Before us, some miles
distant, were the rounded blue hills.

We climbed steadily. It was still very early morning, but already the
day was hot. Pretty soon we saw over the jungle to the gleaming waters
of the inlet, and then to the sea. Our "hog's back" led us past a ridge
of the hills, and before we knew it we had been deposited in a shallow
valley three or four miles wide between parallel ridges; the said valley
being at a considerable elevation, and itself diversified with rolling
hills, ravines, meadow land, and wide flats. On many of the ridges were
scattered cocoanut palms, and occasional mango groves, while many smokes
attested the presence of natives.

These we found in shambas or groups of little farms, huddled all
together, with wilderness and brush and trees, or the wide open green
grass lawn between. The houses were very large and neat-looking. They
were constructed quite ingeniously from coco branches. Each branch made
one mat. The leaves were all brought over to the same side of the stem,
and then plaited. The resulting mat was then six or seven feet long by
from twelve to sixteen inches broad, and could be used for a variety of
purposes. Indeed, we found Melville's chapter in "Typhee" as to the
various uses of the cocoanut palm by no means exaggerated. The nuts,
leaves, and fibre supplied every conceivable human want.

The natives were a pleasant, friendly, good-looking lot. In fact, so
like was their cast of countenance to that of the white-skinned people
we were accustomed to see that we had great difficulty in realizing that
they were mere savages, costume--or lack of it--to the contrary
notwithstanding. Under a huge mango tree two were engaged in dividing a
sheep. Sixty or seventy others stood solemnly around watching. It may
have been a religious ceremony, for all I know; but the affair looked to
be about two parts business to sixty of idle and cheerful curiosity. We
stopped and talked to them a little, chaffed the pretty girls--they were
really pretty--and marched on.

About noon our elegant guide stopped, struck an attitude, and pointed
with his silver-headed rattan cane.

"This," said he, "is where we must camp."

We marched through a little village. A family party sat beneath the
veranda of a fine building--a very old wrinkled couple; two stalwart
beautiful youths; a young mother suckling her baby; two young girls; and
eight or ten miscellaneous and naked youngsters. As the rest of the
village appeared to be empty, I imagined this to be the caretaker's
family, and the youngsters to belong to others. We stopped and spoke,
were answered cheerfully, suggested that we might like to buy chickens,
and offered a price. Instantly with a whoop of joy the lot of them were
afoot. The fowl waited for no further intimations of troublous times,
but fled squawking. They had been there before. So had our hosts; for
inside a minute they had returned, each with a chicken--and a broad
grin.

After due payment we proceeded on a few hundred yards, and pitched camp
beneath two huge mango trees.

Besides furnishing one of the most delicious of the tropical fruits,
the mango is also one of the most beautiful of trees. It is tall,
spreads very wide, and its branches sweep to within ten feet of the
ground. Its perfect symmetry combined with the size and deep green of
its leaves causes it to resemble, from a short distance, a beautiful
green hill. Beneath its umbrella one finds dense shade, unmottled by a
single ray of sunlight, so that one can lie under it in full confidence.
For, parenthetically, even a single ray of this tropical sunlight is to
the unprotected a very dangerous thing. But the leaves of the mango have
this peculiarity, which distinguishes it from all other trees--namely,
that they grow only at the very ends of the small twigs and branches. As
these, of course, grow only at the ends of the big limbs, it follows
that from beneath the mango looks like a lofty green dome, a veritable
pantheon of the forest.

We made our camp under one of these trees; gave ourselves all the space
we could use; and had plenty left over--five tents and a cook camp, with
no crowding. It was one of the pleasantest camps I ever saw. Our green
dome overhead protected us absolutely from the sun; high sweet grass
grew all about us; the breeze wandered lazily up from the distant
Indian Ocean. Directly before our tent door the slope fell gently away
through a sparse cocoanut grove whose straight stems panelled our view,
then rose again to the clear-cut outline of a straight ridge opposite.
The crest of this was sentinelled by tall scattered cocoanut trees, the
"bursting star" pyrotechnic effect of their tops being particularly fine
against the sky.

After a five hours' tropical march uphill we were glad to sit under our
green dome, to look at our view, to enjoy the little breeze, and to
drink some of the cocoanuts our friends the villagers brought in.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] "The Land of Footprints."




X.

THE SABLE.


About three o'clock I began to feel rested and ambitious. Therefore I
called up our elegant guide and Memba Sasa, and set out on my first hunt
for sable. F. was rather more done up by the hard morning, and so did
not go along. The guide wore still his red tarboosh, his dark short
jacket, his saffron yellow nether garment--it was not exactly a
skirt--and his silver-headed rattan cane. The only change he made was to
tuck up the skirt, leaving his long legs bare. It hardly seemed
altogether a suitable costume for hunting; but he seemed to know what he
was about.

We marched along ridges, and down into ravines, and across gulleys
choked with brush. Horrible thickets alternated with and occasionally
surrounded open green meadows hanging against the side hills. As we
proceeded, the country became rougher, the ravines more precipitous. We
struggled up steep hills, fairly bucking our way through low growth that
proved all but impenetrable. The idea was to find a sable feeding in one
of the little open glades; but whenever I allowed myself to think of the
many adverse elements of the game, the chances seemed very slim. It took
a half-hour to get from one glade to the next; there were thousands of
glades. The sable is a rare shy animal that likes dense cover fully as
well if not better than the open. Sheer rank bull luck alone seemed the
only hope. And as I felt my strength going in that vicious struggle
against heavy brush and steep hills, I began to have very strong doubts
indeed as to that sable.

For it was cruel, hard work. In this climate one hailed a car or a
rickshaw to do an errand two streets away, and considered oneself quite
a hero if one took a leisurely two-mile stroll along the cliff heads at
sunset. Here I was, after a five-hour uphill march, bucking into brush
and through country that would be considered difficult going even in
Canada. At the end of twenty minutes my every garment was not wringing
but dripping wet, so that when I carried my rifle over my arm water ran
down the barrel and off the muzzle in a steady stream. After a bit of
this my knees began to weaken; and it became a question of saving
energy, of getting along somehow, and of leaving the actual hunting to
Memba Sasa and the guide. If they had shown me a sable, I very much
doubt if I could have hit it.

However, we did not see one, and I staggered into camp at dusk pretty
well exhausted. From the most grateful hot bath and clean clothes I
derived much refreshment. Shortly I was sitting in my canvas chair,
sipping a cocoanut, and describing the condition of affairs to F., who
was naturally very curious as to how the trick was done.

"Now," I concluded, "I know just about what I can and what I cannot do.
Three days more of this sort of work will feed me up. If we do not run
across a sable in that time, I'm afraid we don't get any."

"Two days will do for me," said he.

We called up the guide and questioned him closely. He seemed quite
confident; and asserted that in this country sable were found, when they
were found at all, which was not often. They must be discovered in the
small grassy openings. We began to understand why so very few people get
sable.

We dismissed the guide, and sat quietly smoking in the warm soft
evening. The air was absolutely still save for various night insects and
birds, and the weird calling of natives across the valleys. Far out
towards the sea a thunderstorm flashed; and after a long interval the
rumblings came to us. So very distant was it that we paid it little
attention, save as an interesting background to our own still evening.
Almost between sentences of our slow conversation, however, it rushed up
to the zenith, blotting out the stars. The tall palms began to sway and
rustle in the forerunning breeze. Then with a swoop it was upon us, a
tempest of fury. We turned in; and all night long the heavy deluges of
rain fell, roaring like surf on an unfriendly coast.

By morning this had fallen to a light, steady drizzle in which we
started off quite happily. In this climate one likes to get wet. The
ground was sodden and deep with muck. Within a mile of camp we saw many
fresh buffalo tracks.

This time we went downhill and still downhill through openings among
batches of great forest trees. The new leaves were just coming out in
pinks and russets, so that the effect at a little distance was almost
precisely that of our autumn foliage in its duller phases. So familiar
were made some of the low rounded knolls that for an instant we were
respectively back in the hills of Surrey or Michigan, and told each
other so.

Thus we moved slowly out from the dense cover to the grass openings. Far
over on another ridge F. called my attention to something jet-black and
indeterminate. In another country I should have named it as a charred
log on an old pine burning, for that was precisely what it looked like.
We glanced at it casually through our glasses. It was a sable buck lying
down right out in the open. He was black and sleek, and we could make
out his sweeping scimitar horns.

Memba Sasa and the Swahili dropped flat on their faces while F. and I
crawled slowly and cautiously through the mud until we had gained the
cover of a shallow ravine that ran in the beast's general direction.
Noting carefully a certain small thicket as landmark, we stooped and
moved as fast as we could down to that point of vantage. There we
cautiously parted the grasses and looked. The sable had disappeared. The
place where he had been lying was plainly to be identified, and there
was no cover save a tiny bush between two and three feet high. We were
quite certain he had neither seen nor winded us. Either he had risen
and fled forward into the ravine up which we had made our stalk, or else
he had entered the small thicket. F. agreed to stay on watch where he
was, while I slipped back and examined the earth to leeward of the
thicket.

I had hardly crawled ten yards, however, before the gentle snapping of
F.'s fingers recalled me to his side.

"He's behind that bush," he whispered in my ear.

I looked. The bush was hardly large enough to conceal a setter dog, and
the sable is somewhat larger than our elk. Nevertheless F. insisted that
the animal was standing behind it, and that he had caught the toss of
its head. We lay still for some time, while the soft, warm rain drizzled
down on us, our eyes riveted on the bush. And then we caught the
momentary flash of curved horns as the sable tossed his head. It seemed
incredible even then that the tiny bush should conceal so large a beast.
As a matter of fact we later found that the bush grew on a slight
elevation, behind which was a depression. In this the sable stood,
patiently enduring the drizzle.

We waited some time in hopes he would move forward a foot or so; but
apparently he had selected his loafing place with care, and liked it.
The danger of a shift of wind was always present. Finally I slipped back
over the brink of the ravine, moved three yards to the left, and crawled
up through the tall dripping grass to a new position behind a little
bush. Cautiously raising my head, I found I could see plainly the
sable's head and part of his shoulders. My position was cramped and out
of balance for offhand shooting; but I did my best, and heard the loud
plunk of the hit. The sable made off at a fast though rather awkward
gallop, wheeled for an instant a hundred yards farther on, received
another bullet in the shoulder, and disappeared over the brow of the
hill. We raced over the top to get in another shot, and found him stone
dead.

He was a fine beast, jet-black in coat, with white markings on the face,
red-brown ears, and horns sweeping up and back scimitar fashion. He
stood four feet and six inches at the shoulder, and his horns were the
second best ever shot in British East Africa. This beast has been
described by Heller as a new subspecies, and named Rooseveltii. His
description was based upon an immature buck and a doe shot by Kermit
Roosevelt. The determination of subspecies on so slight evidence seems
to me unscientific in the extreme. While the immature males do exhibit
the general brown tone relied on by Mr. Heller, the mature buck differs
in no essential from the tropical sable. I find the alledged subspecies
is not accepted by European scientists.




XI.

A MARCH ALONG THE COAST.


With a most comfortable feeling that my task was done, that suddenly the
threatening clouds of killing work had been cleared up, I was now
privileged to loaf and invite my soul on this tropical green hilltop
while poor F. put in the days trying to find another sable. Every
morning he started out before daylight. I could see the light of his
lantern outside the tent; and I stretched myself in the luxurious
consciousness that I should hear no deprecating but insistent "hodie"
from my boy until I pleased to invite it. In the afternoon or evening F.
would return, quite exhausted and dripping, with only the report of new
country traversed. No sable; no tracks of sable; no old signs, even, of
sable. Gradually it was borne in on me how lucky I was to have come upon
my magnificent specimen so promptly and in such favourable
circumstances.

A leisurely breakfast alone, with the sun climbing; then the writing of
notes, a little reading, and perhaps a stroll to the village or along
the top of the ridge. At the heat of noon a siesta with a cool cocoanut
at my elbow. The view was beautiful on all sides; our great tree full of
birds; the rising and dying winds in the palms like the gathering
oncoming rush of the rains. From mountain to mountain sounded the wild,
far-carrying ululations of the natives, conveying news or messages
across the wide jungle. Towards sunset I wandered out in the groves,
enjoying the many bright flowers, the tall, sweet grasses, and the
cocoa-palms against the sky. Piles of cocoanuts lay on the ground,
covered each with a leaf plaited in a peculiarly individual manner to
indicate ownership. Small boys, like little black imps, clung naked
half-way up the slim trunks of the palms, watching me bright-eyed above
the undergrowth. In all directions, crossing and recrossing, ran a maze
of beaten paths. Each led somewhere, but it would require the memory
of--well, of a native, to keep all their destinations in mind.

I used to follow some of them to their ending in little cocoa-leaf
houses on the tops of knolls or beneath mangoes; and would talk with the
people. They were very grave and very polite, and seemed to be living
out their lives quite correctly according to their conceptions. Again,
it was borne in on me that these people are not stumbling along the
course of evolution in our footsteps, but have gone as far in their path
as we have in ours; that they have reached at least as complete a
correspondence with their environment as we with our own.[4]

If F. had not returned by the time I reached camp, I would seat myself
in my canvas chair, and thence dispense justice, advice, or medical
treatment. If none of these things seemed demanded, I smoked my pipe. To
me one afternoon came a big-framed, old, dignified man, with the heavy
beard, the noble features, the high forehead, and the blank statue eyes
of the blind Homer. He was led by a very small, very bright-eyed naked
boy. At some twenty feet distance he squatted down cross-legged before
me. For quite five minutes he sat there silent, while I sat in my camp
chair, smoked and waited. At last he spoke in a rolling deep bass voice
rich and vibrating--a delight to hear.

"Jambo (greeting)!" said he.

"Jambo!" I replied mildly.

Again a five-minute silence. I had begun reading, and had all but
forgotten his presence.

"Jambo bwana (greeting, master)!" he rolled out.

"Jambo!" I repeated.

The same dignified, unhasting pause.

"Jambo bwana m'kubwa (greeting, great master)!"

"Jambo!" quoth I, and went on reading. The sun was dropping, but the old
man seemed in no hurry.

"Jambo bwana m'kubwa sana (greeting, most mighty master)!" he boomed at
last.

"Jambo!" said I.

This would seem to strike the superlative, and I expected now that he
would state his business, but the old man had one more shot in his
locker.

"Jambo bwana m'kubwa kabeesa sana (greeting, mightiest possible
master)!" it came.

Then in due course he delicately hinted that a gift of tobacco would not
come amiss.

F. returned a trifle earlier than usual, to admit that his quest was
hopeless, that his physical forces were for the time being at an end,
and that he was willing to go home.

Accordingly very early next morning we set out by the glimmer of a
lantern, hoping to get a good start on our journey before the heat of
the day became too severe. We did gain something, but performed several
unnecessary loops and semicircles in the maze of beaten paths before we
finally struck into one that led down the slope towards the sea. Shortly
after the dawn came up "like thunder" in its swiftness, followed almost
immediately by the sun.

Our way now led along the wide flat between the seashore and the Shimba
Hills, in which we had been hunting. A road ten feet wide and innocent
of wheels ran with obstinate directness up and down the slight contours
and through the bushes and cocoanut groves that lay in its path. So
mathematically straight was it that only when perspective closed it in,
or when it dropped over the summit of a little rise, did the eye lose
the effect of its interminability. The country through which this road
led was various--open bushy veld with sparse trees, dense jungle,
cocoanut groves, tall and cool. In the shadows of the latter were the
thatched native villages. To the left always ran the blue Shimba Hills;
and far away to the right somewhere we heard the grumbling of the sea.

Every hundred yards or so we met somebody. Even thus early the road was
thronged. By far the majority were the almost naked natives of the
district, pleasant, brown-skinned people with good features. They
carried things. These things varied from great loads balanced atop to
dainty impromptu baskets woven of cocoa-leaves and containing each a
single cocoanut. They smiled on us, returned our greeting, and stood
completely aside to let us pass. Other wayfarers were of more
importance. Small groups of bearded dignitaries, either upper-class
Swahili or pure Arabs, strolled slowly along, apparently with limitless
leisure, but evidently bound somewhere, nevertheless. They replied to
our greetings with great dignity. Once, also, we overtook a small
detachment of Sudanese troops moving. They were scattered over several
miles of road. A soldier, most impressive and neat in khaki and red
tarboosh and sash; then two or three of his laughing, sleek women, clad
in the thin, patterned "'Mericani," glittering with gold ornaments; then
a half dozen ragged porters carrying official but battered painted
wooden kit boxes, or bags, or miscellaneous curious plunder; then more
troopers; and so on for miles. They all drew aside for us most
respectfully; and the soldiers saluted, very smart and military.

Under the broad-spreading mangoes near the villages we came upon many
open markets in full swing. Each vendor squatted on his heels behind his
wares, while the purchasers or traders wandered here and there making
offers. The actual commerce compared with the amount of laughing,
joking, shrieking joy of the occasion as one to a thousand.

Generally three or four degenerate looking dirty East Indians slunk
about, very crafty, very insinuating, very ready and skilful to take
what advantages they could. I felt a strong desire to kick every one of
them out from these joyful concourses of happy people. Generally we sat
down for a while in these markets, and talked to the people a little,
and perhaps purchased some of the delicious fruit. They had a small
delicate variety of banana, most wonderful, the like of which I have
seen nowhere else. We bought forty of these for a coin worth about eight
cents. Besides fruit they offered cocoanuts in all forms, grain, woven
baskets, small articles of handicraft--and fish. The latter were farther
from the sea than they should have been! These occasional halts greatly
refreshed us for more of that endless road.

For all this time we were very hot. As the sun mounted, the country
fairly steamed. From the end of my rifle barrel, which I carried across
my forearm, a steady trickle of water dripped into the road. We neither
of us had a dry stitch on us, and our light garments clung to us
thoroughly wet through. At first we tried the military method, and
marched fifty minutes to rest ten, but soon discovered that twenty-five
minutes' work to five minutes off was more practical. The sheer weight
of the sun was terrific; after we had been exposed to it for any great
length of time--as across several wide open spaces--we entered the
steaming shade of the jungle with gratitude. At the end of seven hours,
however, we most unexpectedly came through a dense cocoanut grove plump
on the banks of the harbour at Kilindini.

Here, after making arrangements for the transport of our safari, when it
should arrive, we entrusted ourselves to a small boy and a cranky boat.
An hour later, clad in tropical white, with cool drinks at our elbows,
we sat in easy-chairs on the veranda of the Mombasa Club.

The clubhouse is built on a low cliff at the water's edge. It looks
across the blue waters of the bay to a headland crowned with
cocoa-palms, and beyond the headland to the Indian Ocean. The cool
trades sweep across that veranda. We idly watched a lone white oarsman
pulling strongly against the wind through the tide rips, evidently bent
on exercise. We speculated on the incredible folly of wanting exercise;
and forgot him. An hour later a huge saffron yellow squall rose from
China 'cross the way, filled the world with an unholy light, lashed the
reluctant sea to white-caps, and swooped screaming on the cocoa-palms.
Police boats to rescue the idiot oarsman! Much minor excitement! Great
rushing to and fro! We continued to sit in our lounging chairs, one hand
on our cool long drinks.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] For a fuller discussion, see "The Land of Footprints."




XII.

THE FIRE.


We were very tired, so we turned in early. W Unfortunately, our rooms
were immediately over the billiard room, where a bibulous and
cosmopolitan lot were earnestly endeavouring to bolster up by further
proof the fiction that a white man cannot retain his health in the
tropics. The process was pretty rackety, and while it could not keep us
awake, it prevented us from falling thoroughly asleep. At length, and
suddenly, the props of noise fell away from me, and I sank into a
grateful, profound abyss.

Almost at once, however, I was dragged back to consciousness. Mohammed
stood at my bedside.

"Bwana," he proffered to my rather angry inquiry, "all the people have
gone to the fire. It is a very large fire. I thought you would like to
see it."

I glanced out of the window at the reddening sky, thrust my feet into a
pair of slippers, and went forth in my pyjamas to see what I could see.

We threaded our way through many narrow dark and deserted streets,
beneath balconies that overhung, past walls over which nodded tufted
palms, until a loud and increasing murmuring told us we were nearing the
centre of disturbance. Shortly, we came to the outskirts of the excited
crowd, and beyond them saw the red furnace glow.

"Semeelay! Semeelay!" warned Mohammed authoritatively; and the
bystanders, seeing a white face, gave me passage.

All of picturesque Mombasa was afoot--Arabs, Swahilis, Somalis, savages,
Indians--the whole lot. They moved restlessly in the narrow streets;
they hung over the edges of balconies; they peered from barred windows;
interested dark faces turned up everywhere in the flickering light. One
woman, a fine, erect, biblical figure, stood silhouetted on a flat
housetop and screamed steadily. I thought she must have at least one
baby in the fire, but it seems she was only excited.

The fire was at present confined to two buildings, in which it was
raging fiercely. Its spread, however, seemed certain; and, as it was
surrounded by warehouses of valuable goods, moving was in full swing. A
frantic white man stood at the low doorway of one of these dungeon-like
stores hastening the movements of an unending string of porters. As each
emerged bearing a case on his shoulder, the white man urged him to a
trot. I followed up the street to see where these valuables were being
taken, and what were the precautions against theft. Around the next
corner, it seemed. As each excited perspiring porter trotted up, he
heaved his burden from his head or his shoulders, and promptly scampered
back for another load. They were loyal and zealous men; but their
headpieces were deficient inside. For the burdens that they saved from
the fire happened to be cases of gin in bottles. At least, it was in
bottles until the process of saving had been completed. Then it trickled
merrily down the gutter. I went back and told the frantic white man
about it. He threw up both hands to heaven and departed.

By dodging from street to street Mohammed and I succeeded in circling
the whole disturbance, and so came at length to a public square. Here
was a vast throng, and a very good place, so I climbed atop a rescued
bale of cotton the better to see.

Mombasa has no water system, but a wonderful corps of water-carriers.
These were in requisition to a man. They disappeared down through the
wide gates of the customs enclosure, their naked, muscular, light-brown
bodies gleaming with sweat, their Standard Oil cans dangling merrily at
the ends of slender poles. A moment later they emerged, the cans full of
salt water from the bay, the poles seeming fairly to butt into their
bare shoulders as they teetered along at their rapid, swaying, burdened
gait.

The moment they entered the square they were seized upon from a dozen
different sides. There was no system at all. Every owner of property was
out for himself, and intended to get as much of the precious water as he
could. The poor carriers were pulled about, jerked violently here and
there, besought, commanded, to bring their loads to one or the other of
the threatened premises. Vociferations, accusations, commands arose to
screams. One old graybeard occupied himself by standing on tiptoe and
screeching, "Maji! maji! maji!" at the top of his voice, as though that
added anything to the visible supply. The water-carrier of the moment
disappeared in a swirl of excited contestants. He was attending strictly
to business, looking neither to right nor to left, pushing forward as
steadily as he could, gasping mechanically his customary warning,
"Semeelay! Semeelay!" Somehow, eventually, he and his comrades must have
got somewhere; for after an interval he returned with empty buckets.
Then every blessed fool of a property owner took a whack at his bare
shoulders as he passed, shrieking hysterically, "Haya! haya! pesi!
pesi!" and the like to men already doing their best. It was a grand
sight!

In the meantime the fire itself was roaring away. The old graybeard
suddenly ceased crying "maji," and darted forward to where I stood on
the bale of cotton. With great but somewhat flurried respect he begged
me to descend. I did so, somewhat curious as to what he might be up to,
for the cotton was at least two hundred feet from the fire. Immediately
he began to tug and heave; the bale was almost beyond his strength; but
after incredible exertions he lifted one side of it, poised it for a
moment, got his shoulder under it, and rolled it over once. Then he
darted away and resumed his raucous cry for water. I climbed back again.
Thrice more, at intervals, he repeated this performance. The only result
was to daub with mud every possible side of that bale. I hope it was his
property.

You must remember that I was observing the heavy artillery of the attack
on the conflagration. Individual campaigns were everywhere in progress.
I saw one man standing on the roof of a threatened building. He lowered
slowly, hand over hand, a small tea-kettle at the end of a string. This
was filled by a friend in the street, whereupon the man hauled it up
again, slowly, hand over hand, and solemnly dashed its contents into the
mouth of the furnace. Thousands of other men on roofs, in balconies, on
the street, were doing the same thing. Some had ordinary cups which they
filled a block away! The limit of efficiency was a pail. Nobody did
anything in concert with anybody else. The sight of these thousands of
little midgets each with his teacup, or his teapot, or his tin pail,
throwing each his mite of water--for which he had to walk a street or
so--into the ravening roaring furnace of flame was as pathetic or as
comical as you please. They did not seem to have a show in the world.

Nevertheless, to my vast surprise, the old system of the East triumphed
at last. The system of the East is that if you get _enough_ labour you
can accomplish anything. Little by little those thousands of tea kettles
of water had their aggregate effect. The flames fed themselves out and
died down leaving the contiguous buildings unharmed save for a little
scorching. In two hours all was safe, and I returned to the hotel,
having enjoyed myself hugely. I had, however, in the interest and
excitement, forgotten how deadly is the fever of Mombasa. Midnight in
pyjamas did the business; and shortly I paid well for the fun.




PART III.

NAIROBI.






XIII.

UP FROM THE COAST.


Nairobi is situated at the far edge of the great Athi Plains and just
below a range of hills. It might about as well have been anywhere else,
and perhaps better a few miles back in the higher country. Whether the
funny little narrow-gauge railroad exists for Nairobi, or Nairobi for
the railroad, it would be difficult to say. Between Mombasa and this
interior placed-to-order town, certainly, there is nothing, absolutely
nothing, either in passengers or freight, to justify building the line.
That distance is, if I remember it correctly, about three hundred and
twenty miles. A dozen or so names of stations appear on the map. These
are water tanks, telegraph stations, or small groups of tents in which
dwell black labourers--on the railroad.

The way climbs out from the tropical steaming coast belt to and across
the high scrub desert, and then through lower rounded hills to the
plains. On the desert is only dense thorn brush--and a possibility that
the newcomer, if he looks very closely, may to his excitement see his
first game in Africa. This is a stray duiker or so, tiny grass antelopes
a foot high. Also in this land is thirst; so that alongside the
locomotives, as they struggle up grade, in bad seasons, run natives to
catch precious drops.[5] An impalpable red dust sifts through and into
everything. When a man descends at Voi for dinner he finds his
fellow-travellers have changed complexion. The pale clerk from indoor
Mombasa has put on a fine healthy sunburn; and the company in general
present a rich out-of-doors bloom. A chance dab with a white napkin
comes away like fresh paint, however.

You clamber back into the compartment, with its latticed sun shades and
its smoked glass windows; you let down the narrow canvas bunk; you
unfold your rug, and settle yourself for repose. It is a difficult
matter. Everything you touch is gritty. The air is close and stifling,
like the smoke-charged air of a tunnel. If you try to open a window you
are suffocated with more of the red dust. At last you fall into a doze;
to awaken nearly frozen! The train has climbed into what is, after weeks
of the tropics, comparative cold; and if you have not been warned to
carry wraps, you are in danger of pneumonia.

The gray dawn comes, and shortly, in the sudden tropical fashion, the
full light. You look out on a wide smiling grass country, with dips and
swales, and brushy river bottoms, and long slopes and hills thrusting up
in masses from down below the horizon, and singly here and there in the
immensities nearer at hand. The train winds and doubles on itself up the
gentle slopes and across the imperceptibly rising plains. But the
interest is not in these wide prospects, beautiful and smiling as they
may be, but in the game. It is everywhere. Far in the distance the herds
twinkle, half guessed in the shimmer of the bottom lands or dotting the
sides of the hills. Nearer at hand it stares as the train rumbles and
sways laboriously past. Occasionally it even becomes necessary to
whistle aside some impertinent kongoni that has placed himself between
the metals! The newcomer has but a theoretical knowledge at best of all
these animals; and he is intensely interested in identifying the various
species. The hartebeeste and the wildebeeste he learns quickly enough,
and of course the zebra and the giraffe are unmistakable; but the
smaller gazelles are legitimate subjects for discussion. The wonder of
the extraordinary abundance of these wild animals mounts as the hours
slip by. At the stops for water or for orders the passengers gather from
their different compartments to detail excitedly to each other what they
have seen. There is always an honest superenthusiast who believes he has
seen rhinoceroses, lions, or leopards. He is looked upon with envy by
the credulous, and with exasperation by all others.

So the little train puffs and tugs along. Suddenly it happens on a
barbed wire fence, and immediately after enters the town of Nairobi. The
game has persisted right up to that barbed wire fence.

The station platform is thronged with a heterogeneous multitude of
people. The hands of a dozen raggetty black boys are stretched out for
luggage. The newcomer sees with delight a savage with a tin can in his
stretched ear lobe; another with a set of wooden skewers set fanwise
around the edge of the ear; he catches a glimpse of a beautiful naked
creature very proud, very decorated with beads and heavy polished wire.
Then he is ravished away by the friend, or agent, or hotel
representative who has met him, and hurried out through the gates
between the impassive and dignified Sikh sentries to the cab. I believe
nobody but the newcomer ever rides in the cab; and then but once, from
the station to the hotel. After that he uses rickshaws. In fact it is
probable that the cab is maintained for the sole purpose of giving the
newcomer a grand and impressive entrance. This brief fleeting quarter
hour of glory is unique and passes. It is like crossing the Line, or the
first kiss, something that in its nature cannot be repeated.

The cab was once a noble vehicle, compounded of opulent curves, with a
very high driver's box in front, a little let-down bench, and a deep,
luxurious, shell-shaped back seat, reclining in which one received the
adulation of the populace. That was in its youth. Now in its age the
varnish is gone; the upholstery of the back seat frayed; the upholstery
of the small seat lacking utterly, so that one sits on bare boards. In
place of two dignifiedly spirited fat white horses, it is drawn by two
very small mules in a semi-detached position far ahead. And how it
rattles!

Between the station and the hotel at Nairobi is a long straight wide
well-made street, nearly a mile long, and bordered by a double row of
young eucalyptus. These latter have changed the main street of Nairobi
from the sunbaked array of galvanized houses described by travellers of
a half dozen years back to a thoroughfare of great charm. The iron
houses and stores are now in a shaded background; and the attention is
freed to concentrate on the vivid colouring, the incessant movement, the
great interest of the people moving to and fro. When I left Nairobi the
authorities were considering the removal of these trees, because one row
of them had been planted slightly within the legal limits of the street.
What they could interfere with in a practically horseless town I cannot
imagine, but I trust this stupidity gave way to second thought.

The cab rattles and careers up the length of the street, scattering
rickshaws and pedestrians from before its triumphant path. To the left
opens a wide street of little booths under iron awnings, hung with gay
colour and glittering things. The street is thronged from side to side
with natives of all sorts. It whirls past, and shortly after the cab
dashes inside a fence and draws up before the low stone-built,
wide-verandahed hotel.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] The Government does much nowadays by means of tank cars.




XIV.

A TOWN OF CONTRASTS.


It has been, as I have said, the fashion to speak of Nairobi as an ugly
little town. This was probably true when the first corrugated iron
houses huddled unrelieved near the railway station. It is not true now.
The lower part of town is well planted, and is always picturesque as
long as its people are astir. The white population have built in the
wooded hills some charming bungalows surrounded by bright flowers or
lost amid the trunks of great trees. From the heights on which is
Government House one can, with a glass, watch the game herds feeding on
the plains. Two clubs, with the usual games of golf, polo,
tennis--especially tennis--football and cricket; a weekly hunt, with
jackals instead of foxes; a bungalow town club on the slope of a hill;
an electric light system; a race track; a rifle range; frilly parasols
and the latest fluffiest summer toilettes from London and Paris--I
mention a few of the refinements of civilization that offer to the
traveller some of the most piquant of contrasts.

For it must not be forgotten that Nairobi, in spite of these things--due
to the direct but slender thread of communication by railroad and
ships--is actually in the middle of an African wilderness--is a black
man's town, as far as numbers go.[6]

The game feeds to its very outskirts, even wanders into the streets at
night.[7] Lions may be heard roaring within a mile or so of town; and
leopards occasionally at night come on the verandas of the outlying
dwellings. Naked savages from the jungle untouched by civilization in
even the minutest particular wander the streets unabashed.

It is this constantly recurring, sharply drawn contrast that gives
Nairobi its piquant charm. As one sits on the broad hotel veranda a
constantly varied pageant passes before him. A daintily dressed,
fresh-faced Englishwoman bobs by in a smart rickshaw drawn by two
uniformed runners; a Kikuyu, anointed, curled, naked, brass adorned,
teeters along, an expression of satisfaction on his face; a horseman,
well appointed, trots briskly by followed by his loping syce; a string
of skin-clad women, their heads fantastically shaved, heavily
ornamented, lean forward under the burden of firewood for the market; a
beautiful baby in a frilled perambulator is propelled by a tall, solemn,
fine-looking black man in white robe and cap; the driver of a high cart
tools his animal past a creaking, clumsy, two-wheeled wagon drawn by a
pair of small humpbacked native oxen. And so it goes, all day long,
without end. The public rickshaw boys just across the way chatter and
game and quarrel and keep a watchful eye out for a possible patron on
whom to charge vociferously and full tilt. Two or three old-timers with
white whiskers and red faces continue to slaughter thousands and
thousands and thousands of lions from the depths of their easy chairs.

The stone veranda of that hotel is a very interesting place. Here gather
men from all parts of East Africa, from Uganda, and the jungles of the
Upper Congo. At one time or another all the famous hunters drop into its
canvas chairs--Cunninghame, Allan Black, Judd, Outram, Hoey, and the
others; white traders with the natives of distant lands; owners of farms
experimenting bravely on a greater or lesser scale in a land whose
difficulties are just beginning to be understood; great naturalists and
scientists from the governments of the earth, eager to observe and
collect this interesting and teeming fauna; and sportsmen just out and
full of interest, or just returned and modestly important. More
absorbing conversation can be listened to on this veranda than in any
other one place in the world. The gathering is cosmopolitan; it is
representative of the most active of every social, political, and racial
element; it has done things; it contemplates vital problems from the
vantage ground of experience. The talk veers from pole to pole--and
returns always to lions.

Every little while a native--a raw savage--comes along and takes up a
stand just outside the railing. He stands there mute and patient for
five minutes--a half hour--until some one, any one, happens to notice
him.

"N'jo!--come here!" commands this person.

The savage silently proffers a bit of paper on which is written the name
of the one with whom he has business.

"Nenda officie!" indicates the charitable person waving his hand
towards the hotel office.

Then, and not until this permission has been given by some one, dares
the savage cross the threshold to do his errand.

If the messenger happens to be a trained houseboy, however, dressed in
his uniform of khaki or his more picturesque white robe and cap, he is
privileged to work out his own salvation. And behind the hotel are rows
and rows of other boys, each waiting patiently the pleasure of his
especial bwana lounging at ease after strenuous days. At the drawling
shout of "boy!" one of them instantly departs to find out which
particular boy is wanted.

The moment any white man walks to the edge of the veranda a half-dozen
of the rickshaws across the street career madly around the corners of
the fence, bumping, colliding, careening dangerously, to drop
beseechingly in serried confusion close around the step. The rickshaw
habit is very strong in Nairobi. If a man wants to go a hundred yards
down the street he takes a rickshaw for that stupendous journey. There
is in justification the legend that the white man should not exert
himself in the tropics. I fell into the custom of the country until I
reflected that it would hardly be more fatal to me to walk a half-hour
in the streets of Nairobi than to march six or seven hours--as I often
did--when on safari or in the hunting field. After that I got a little
exercise, to the vast scandal of the rickshaw boys. In fact, so unusual
was my performance that at first I had fairly to clear myself a way with
my kiboko. After a few experiences they concluded me a particularly
crazy person and let me alone.

Rickshaws, however, are very efficient and very cheap. The runners, two
in number, are lithe little round-headed Kavirondos, generally, their
heads shaved to leave a skull cap, clad in scant ragged garments, and
wearing each an anklet of little bells. Their passion for ornament they
confine to small bright things in their hair and ears. They run easily,
with a very long stride. Even steep hills they struggle up somehow,
zigzagging from one side of the road to the other, edging along an inch
or so at a time. In such places I should infinitely have preferred to
have walked, but that would have lost me caste everywhere. There are
limits even to a crazy man's idiosyncrasies. For that reason I never
thoroughly enjoyed rickshaws, save along the level ways with bells
jingling and feet patpatting a rapid time. Certainly I did not enjoy
them going down the steep hills. The boy between the shafts in front
hits the landscape about every forty feet. I do not really object to
sudden death, but this form of it seemed unfair to some poor hungry
lion.

However, the winding smooth roads among the forested, shaded bungalows
of the upper part of town were very attractive, especially towards
evening. At that time the universal sun-helmet or double terai could be
laid aside for straw hats, cloth caps, or bare heads. People played the
more violent games, or strolled idly. At the hotel there was now a good
deal of foolish drinking; foolish, because in this climate it is very
bad for the human system, and in these surroundings of much interest and
excitement the relief of its exaltation from monotony or ennui or
routine could hardly be required.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Fifteen hundred whites to twelve thousand natives, approximately.

[7] This happened twice while I was in the country.




XV.

PEOPLE.


Considered as a class rather than as individuals, the dark-skinned
population is easily the more interesting. Considered as individuals,
the converse is true. Men like Sir Percy Girouard, Hobley, Jackson, Lord
Delamere, McMillan, Cunninghame, Allan Black, Leslie Tarleton,
Vanderweyer, the Hill cousins, Horne, and a dozen others are nowhere
else to be met in so small a community. But the whites have developed
nothing in their relations one to another essentially different. The
artisan and shopkeeping class dwell on the flats; the Government people
and those of military connections live on the heights on one side of the
little stream; the civil service and bigger business men among the hills
on the other. Between them all is a little jealousy, and contempt, and
condescension; just as there is jealousy, and contempt, and
condescension elsewhere. They are pleasant people, and hospitable, and
some of them very distinguished in position or achievement; and I am
glad to say I have good friends among them.

But the native is the joy, and the never-ceasing delight. For his
benefit is the wide, glittering, colourful, insanitary bazaar, with its
dozens of little open-air veranda shops, its "hotels" where he can sit
in a real chair and drink real tea, its cafes, and the dark mysteries of
its more doubtful amusements. The bazaar is right in the middle of town,
just where it ought not to be, and it is constantly being quarantined,
and threatened with removal. It houses a large population mysteriously,
for it is of slight extent. Then on the borders of town are the two
great native villages--one belonging to the Somalis, and the other
hospitably accommodating the swarms of caravan porters and their
families. For, just as in old days Mombasa and Zanzibar used to be the
points from which caravans into the interior would set forth, now
Nairobi outfits the majority of expeditions. Probably ten thousand
picked natives of various tribes are engaged in the profession. Of
course but a small proportion of this number is ever at home at any one
time; but the village is a large one. Both these villages are built in
the native style, of plaster and thatch; have their own headman
government--under supervision--and are kept pretty well swept out and
tidy. Besides these three main gathering places are many camps and
"shambas"[8] scattered everywhere; and the back country counts millions
of raw jungle savages, only too glad to drift in occasionally for a look
at the metropolis.

At first the newcomer is absolutely bewildered by the variety of these
peoples; but after a little he learns to differentiate. The Somalis are
perhaps the first recognizable, with their finely chiselled,
intelligent, delicate brown features, their slender forms, and their
strikingly picturesque costumes of turbans, flowing robes, and
embroidered sleeveless jackets. Then he learns to distinguish the savage
from the sophisticated dweller of the town. Later comes the
identification of the numerous tribes.

The savage comes in just as he has been for, ethnologists alone can
guess, how many thousands of years. He is too old an institution to have
been affected as yet by this tiny spot of modernity in the middle of the
wilderness. As a consequence he startles the newcomer even more than
the sight of giraffes on the sky-line.

When the shenzi--wild man--comes to town he gathers in two or three of
his companions, and presents himself as follows: His hair has been grown
quite long, then gathered in three tight pigtails wound with leather,
one of which hangs over his forehead, and the other two over his ears.
The entire head he has then anointed with a mixture of castor oil and a
bright red colouring earth. This is wiped away evenly all around the
face, about two inches below the hair, to leave a broad, bandlike
glistening effect around the entire head. The ears are most marvellous.
From early youth the lobes have been stretched, until at last they have
become like two long elastic loops, hanging down upon the shoulder, and
capable of accommodating anything up to and including a tomato can. When
in fatigue uniform these loops are caught up over the tops of the ears,
but on dress parade they accommodate almost anything considered
ornamental. I have seen a row of safety pins clasped in them or a number
of curtain rings; or a marmalade jar, or the glittering cover of a
tobacco tin. The edges of the ears, all around to the top, are then
pierced. Then the insertion of a row of long white wooden skewers gives
one a peculiarly porcupinish look; or a row of little brass danglers
hints of wealth. Having thus finished off his head, your savage clasps
around his neck various strings of beads; or collars of iron or copper
wire, polished to the point of glitter; puts on a half-dozen armlets and
leglets of the same; ties on a narrow bead belt, in which is thrust a
short sword; anoints himself all over with reddened castor oil until he
glistens and shines in the sun; rubs his legs with white clay and traces
patterns therein; seizes his long-bladed spear, and is ready for the
city. Oh, no! I forgot--and he probably came near doing so--his strip of
'Mericani.[9] This was originally white, but constant wear over castor
oil has turned it a uniform and beautiful brown.

The purpose of this is ornament, and it is so worn. There has been an
attempt, I understand, to force these innocent children to some sort of
conventional decency while actually in the streets of Nairobi. It was
too large an order. Some bring in clothes, to be sure, because the white
man asks it; but why no sensible man could say. They are hung from one
shoulder, flap merrily in the breeze, and are always quite frankly
tucked up about the neck or under the arms when the wearer happens to be
in haste. As a matter of fact these savages are so beautifully and
smoothly formed; their red-brown or chocolate-brown skin is so fine in
texture, and their complete unconsciousness so genuine that in an hour
the newcomer is quite accustomed to their nakedness.

These proud youths wander mincingly down the street with an expression
of the most fatuous and good-natured satisfaction with themselves. To
their minds they have evidently done every last thing that human
ingenuity or convention could encompass.

These young men are the dandies, the proud young aristocracy of wealth
and importance; and of course they may differ individually or tribally
from the sample I have offered. Also there are many other social grades.
Those who care less for dress or have less to get it with can rub along
very cheaply. The only real essentials are (_a_) something for the
ear--a tomato can will do; (_b_) a trifle for clothing--and for that a
scrap of gunny sacking will be quite enough.

The women to be seen in the streets of Nairobi are mostly of the Kikuyu
tribe. They are pretty much of a pattern. Their heads are shaven,
either completely or to leave only ornamental tufts; and are generally
bound with a fine wire fillet so tightly that the strands seem to sink
into the flesh. A piece of cotton cloth, dyed dark umber red, is belted
around the waist, and sometimes, but not always, another is thrown about
the shoulder. They go in for more hardware than do the men. The entire
arms and the calves of the legs are encased in a sort of armour made of
quarter-inch wire wound closely, and a collar of the same material
stands out like a ruff eight or ten inches around the neck. This is
wound on for good; and must be worn day and night and all the time, a
cumbersome and tremendously heavy burden. A dozen large loops of
coloured beads strung through the ears, and various strings and
necklaces of beads, cowrie shells, and the like finish them out in all
their gorgeousness. They would sink like plummets. Their job in life,
besides lugging all this stuff about, is to carry in firewood and
forage. At any time of the day long files of them can be seen bending
forward under their burdens. These they carry on their backs by means of
a strap across the tops of their heads; after the fashion of the
Canadian tump line.

The next cut above the shenzi, or wild man, is the individual who has
been on safari as carrier, or has otherwise been much employed around
white men. From this experience he has acquired articles of apparel and
points of view. He is given to ragged khaki, or cast-off garments of all
sorts, but never to shoes. This hint of the conventional only serves to
accent the little self-satisfied excursions he makes into barbarism. The
shirt is always worn outside, the ear ornaments are as varied as ever,
the head is shaved in strange patterns, a tiny tight tuft on the crown
is useful as fastening for feathers or little streamers or anything else
that will wave or glitter. One of these individuals wore a red label he
had, with patience and difficulty, removed from one of our trunks. He
had pasted it on his forehead; and it read "Baggage Room. Not Wanted."
These people are, after all, but modified shenzis. The modification is
nearly always in the direction of the comic.

Now we step up to a class that would resent being called shenzis as it
would resent an insult. This is the personal servant class. The members
are of all tribes, with possibly a slight preponderance of Swahilis and
Somalis. They are a very clean, well-groomed, self-respecting class,
with a great deal of dignity, and a great deal of pride in their
bwanas. Also they are exceedingly likely to degenerate unless ruled with
a firm hand and a wise head. Very rarely are they dishonest as respects
the possessions of their own masters. They understand their work
perfectly, and the best of them get the equivalent of from eight to ten
dollars a month. Every white individual has one or more of them; even
the tiny children with their ridiculous little sun helmets are followed
everywhere by a tall, solemn, white-robed black. Their powers of
divination approach the uncanny. About the time you begin to think of
wanting something, and are making a first helpless survey of a boyless
landscape, your own servant suddenly, mysteriously, and unobtrusively
appears from nowhere. Where he keeps himself, where he feeds himself,
where he sleeps you do not know. These beautifully clean, trim,
dignified people are always a pleasant feature in the varied picture.

The Somalis are a clan by themselves. A few of them condescend to
domestic service, but the most prefer the free life of traders, horse
dealers, gunbearers, camel drivers, labour go-betweens, and similar
guerrilla occupations. They are handsome, dashing, proud, treacherous,
courageous, likeable, untrustworthy. They career around on their high,
short-stirruped saddles; they saunter indolently in small groups; they
hang about the hotel hoping for a dicker of some kind. There is nothing
of the savage about them, but much of the true barbarism, with the
barbarian's pride, treachery, and love of colour.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Native farmlets, generally temporary.

[9] White cotton cloth.




XVI.

RECRUITING.


To the traveller Nairobi is most interesting as the point from which
expeditions start and to which they return. Doubtless an extended stay
in the country would show him that problems of administration and
possibilities of development could be even more absorbing; but such
things are very sketchy to him at first.

As a usual thing, when he wants porters he picks them out from the
throng hanging around the big outfitters' establishments. Each man is
then given a blanket--cotton, but of a most satisfying red--a tin water
bottle, a short stout cord, and a navy blue jersey. After that ceremony
he is yours.

But on the occasion of one three months' journey into comparatively
unknown country we ran up against difficulties. Some two weeks before
our contemplated start two or three cases of bubonic plague had been
discovered in the bazaar, and as a consequence Nairobi was quarantined.
This meant that a rope had been stretched around the infected area, that
the shops had been closed, and that no native could--officially--leave
Nairobi. The latter provision affected us; for under it we should be
unable to get our bearers out.

As a matter of fact, the whole performance--unofficially--was a farce.
Natives conversed affably at arm's length across the ropes; hundreds
sneaked in and out of town at will; and from the rear of the infected
area I personally saw beds, chests, household goods, blankets, and
clothes passed to friends outside the ropes. When this latter condition
was reported, in my presence, to the medical officers, they replied that
this was a matter for police cognizance! But the brave outward show of
ropes, disinfectants, gorgeous sentries--in front--and official
inspection went solemnly on. Great, even in Africa, is the god of red
tape.

Our only possible plan, in the circumstances, was to recruit the men
outside the town, to camp them somewhere, march them across country to a
way station, and there embark them. Our goods and safari stores we
could then ship out to them by train.

Accordingly we rode on bicycles out to the Swahili village.

This is, as I have said, composed of large "beehive" houses thatched
conically with straw. The roofs extend to form verandas beneath which
sit indolent damsels, their hair divided in innumerable tiny parts
running fore and aft like the stripes on a water melon; their figured
'Mericani garments draped gracefully. As befitted the women of
plutocrats, they wore much jewellery, some of it set in their noses.
Most of them did all of nothing, but some sat half buried in narrow
strips of bright-coloured tissue paper. These they were pasting together
like rolls of tape, the coloured edges of the paper forming concentric
patterns on the resultant discs--an infinite labour. The discs, when
completed, were for insertion in the lobes of the ears.

When we arrived the irregular "streets" of the village were nearly
empty, save for a few elegant youths, in long kanzuas, or robes of
cinnamon colour and spotless white, on their heads fezzes or turbans, in
their hands slender rattan canes. They were very busy talking to each
other, and of course did not notice the idle beauties beneath the
verandas.

Hardly had we appeared, however, when mysteriously came forth the
headman--a bearded, solemn, Arab-like person with a phenomenally ugly
face but a most pleasing smile. We told him we wanted porters. He
clapped his hands. To the four young men who answered this summons he
gave a command. From sleepy indolence they sprang into life. To the four
cardinal points of the compass they darted away, running up and down the
side streets, beating on the doors, screaming at the tops of their lungs
the word "Cazi"[10] over and over again.

The village hummed like a wasps' nest. Men poured from the huts in
swarms. The streets were filled; the idle sauntering youths were
swamped, and sunk from view. Clamour and shouting arose where before had
been a droning silence. The mob beat up to where we stood, surrounding
us, shouting at us. From somewhere some one brought an old table and two
decrepit chairs, battered and rickety in themselves, but symbols of
great authority in a community where nobody habitually used either. Two
naked boys proudly took charge of our bicycles.

We seated ourselves.

"Fall in!" we yelled.

About half the crowd fell into rough lines. The rest drew slightly to
one side. Nobody stopped talking for a single instant.

We arose and tackled our job. The first part of it was to segregate the
applicants into their different tribes.

"Monumwezi hapa!" we yelled; and the command was repeated and repeated
again by the headman, by his four personal assistants, by a half-dozen
lesser headmen. Slowly the Monumwezi drew aside. We impressed on them
emphatically they must stay thus, and went after, in turn, the Baganda,
the Wakamba, the Swahilis, the Kavirondo, the Kikuyu. When we had them
grouped, we went over them individually. We punched their chests, we ran
over all their joints, we examined their feet, we felt their muscles.
Our victims stood rigidly at inspection, but their numerous friends
surrounded us closely, urging the claims of the man to our notice. It
was rather confusing, but we tried to go at it as though we were alone
in a wilderness. If the man passed muster we motioned him to a rapidly
growing group.

When we had finished we had about sixty men segregated. Then we went
over this picked lot again. This time we tried not only to get good
specimens, but to mix our tribes. At last our count of twenty-nine was
made up, and we took a deep breath. But to us came one of them
complaining that he was a Monumwezi, and that we had picked only three
Monumwezi, and--We cut him short. His contention was quite correct. A
porter tent holds five, and it does not do to mix tribes.
Reorganization! Cut out two extra Kavirondos, and include two more
Monumwezi. "Bass! finished! Now go get your effects. We start
immediately."

As quickly as it had filled, the street cleared. The rejected dived back
into their huts, the newly enlisted carriers went to collect their
baggage. Only remained the headman and his fierce-faced assistants, and
the splendid youths idling up and down--none of them had volunteered,
you may be sure--and the damsels of leisure beneath the porticos. Also
one engaging and peculiar figure hovering near.

This individual had been particularly busy during our recruiting. He had
hustled the men into line, he had advised us for or against different
candidates, he had loudly sung my praises as a man to work for,
although, of course, he knew nothing about me. Now he approached,
saluted, smiled. He was a tall, slenderly-built person, with
phenomenally long, thin legs, slightly rounded shoulders, a forward
thrust, keen face, and remarkably long, slim hands. With these he
gesticulated much, in a right-angled fashion, after the manner of
Egyptian hieroglyphical figures. He was in no manner shenzi. He wore a
fez, a neat khaki coat and shorts, blue puttees and boots. Also a belt
with leather pockets, a bunch of keys, a wrist watch, and a seal ring.
His air was of great elegance and social ease. We took him with us as
C.'s gunbearer. He proved staunch, a good tracker, an excellent hunter,
and a most engaging individual. His name was Kongoni, and he was a
Wakamba.

But now we were confronted with a new problem: that of getting our
twenty-nine chosen ones together again. They had totally disappeared. In
all directions we had emissaries beating up the laggards. As each man
reappeared carrying his little bundle, we lined him up with his
companions. Then when we turned our backs we lost him again; he had
thought of another friend with whom to exchange farewells. At the long
last, however, we got them all collected. The procession started, the
naked boys proudly wheeling our bikes alongside. We saw them fairly
clear of everything, then turned them over to Kongoni, while we returned
to Nairobi to see after our effects.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Work.




PART IV. A LION HUNT ON KAPITI.




XVII.

AN OSTRICH FARM AT MACHAKOS.


This has to do with a lion hunt on the Kapiti Plains. On the veranda at
Nairobi I had some time previous met Clifford Hill, who had invited me
to visit him at the ostrich farm he and his cousin were running in the
mountains near Machakos. Some time later, a visit to Juja Farm gave me
the opportunity. Juja is only a day's ride from the Hills'. So an
Africander, originally from the south, Captain D., and I sent across a
few carriers with our personal effects, and ourselves rode over on
horseback.

Juja is on the Athi Plains. Between the Athi and Kapiti Plains runs a
range of low mountains around the end of which one can make his way as
around a promontory. The Hills' ostrich farm was on the highlands in the
bay on the other side of the promontory.

It was towards the close of the rainy season, and the rivers were up.
We had to swim our horses within a half-mile of Juja, and got pretty
wet. Shortly after crossing the Athi, however, five miles on, we emerged
on the dry, drained slopes from the hills. Here the grass was long, and
the ticks plentiful. Our horses' legs and chests were black with them;
and when we dismounted for lunch we ourselves were almost immediately
alive with the pests. In this very high grass the game was rather
scarce, but after we had climbed by insensible grades to the shorter
growth we began to see many hartebeeste, zebra, and gazelles, and a few
of the wildebeeste, or brindled gnus. Travel over these great plains and
through these leisurely low hills is a good deal like coastwise
sailing--the same apparently unattainable landmarks which, nevertheless,
are at last passed and left astern by the same sure but insensible
progress. Thus we drew up on apparently continuous hills, found wide
gaps between them, crossed them, and turned to the left along the other
side of the promontory. About five o'clock we came to the Hills'.

The ostrich farm is situated on the very top of a conical rise that
sticks up like an island close inshore to the semicircle of mountains in
which end the vast plains of Kapiti. Thus the Hills have at their backs
and sides these solid ramparts and face westward the immensities of
space. For Kapiti goes on over the edge of the world to unknown,
unguessed regions, rolling and troubled like a sea. And from that
unknown, on very still days, the snowy peak of Kilimanjaro peers out,
sketched as faintly against the sky as a soap bubble wafted upward and
about to disappear. Here and there on the plains kopjes stand like
islands, their stone tops looking as though thrust through the smooth
prairie surface from beneath. To them meandered long, narrow ravines
full of low brush, like thin, wavering streaks of gray. On these
kopjes--each of which had its name--and in these ravines we were to hunt
lions.

We began the ascent of the cone on which dwelt our hosts. It was one of
those hills that seem in no part steep, and yet which finally succeed in
raising one to a considerable height. We passed two ostrich herds in
charge of savages, rode through a scattered native village, and so came
to the farm itself, situated on the very summit.

The house consisted of three large circular huts, thatched neatly with
papyrus stalks, and with conical roofs. These were arranged as a
triangle, just touching each other; and the space between had been
roofed over to form a veranda. We were ushered into one of these
circular rooms. It was spacious and contained two beds, two chairs, a
dresser, and a table. Its earth floor was completely covered by the
skins of animals. In the corresponding room, opposite, slept our hosts;
while the third was the living and dining room. A long table, raw-hide
bottomed chairs, a large sideboard, bookcases, a long easy settee with
pillows, gun racks, photographs in and out of frames, a table with
writing materials, and books and magazines everywhere--not to speak of
again the skins of many animals completely covering the floor. Out
behind, in small, separate buildings, laboured the cook, and dwelt the
stores, the bath-tub, and other such necessary affairs.

As soon as we had consumed the usual grateful lime juice and sparklets,
we followed our hosts into the open air to look around.

On this high, airy hill top the Hills some day are going to build them a
real house. In anticipation they have laid out grounds and have planted
many things. In examining these my California training stood by me. Out
there, as here, one so often examines his own and his neighbours'
gardens, not for what they are but for what they shall become. His
imagination can exalt this tiny seedling to the impressiveness of
spreading noontime shade; can magnify yonder apparent duplicate to the
full symmetry of a shrub; can ruthlessly diminish the present importance
of certain grand and lofty growths to its true status of flower or
animal. So from a dead uniformity of size he casts forward in the years
to a pleasing variation of shade, of jungle, of open glade, of flowered
vista; and he goes away full of expert admiration for "X.'s bully
garden." With this solid training beneath me I was able on this occasion
to please immensely.

From the house site we descended the slope to where the ostriches and
the cattle and the people were in the late sunlight swarming upward from
the plains pastures below. These people were, to the chief extent,
Wakamba, quite savage, but attracted here by the justness and fair
dealing of the Hills. Some of them farmed on shares with the Hills, the
white men furnishing the land and seed, and the black men the labour;
some of them laboured on wage; some few herded cattle or ostriches; some
were hunters and took the field only when, as now, serious business was
afoot. They had their complete villages, with priests, witch doctors,
and all; and they seemed both contented and fond of the two white men.

As we walked about we learned much of the ostrich business; and in the
course of our ten days' visit we came to a better realization of how
much there is to think of in what appears basically so simple a
proposition.

In the nesting time, then, the Hills went out over the open country,
sometimes for days at a time, armed with long high-power telescopes.
With these fearsome and unwieldy instruments they surveyed the country
inch by inch from the advantage of a kopje. When thus they discovered a
nest, they descended and appropriated the eggs. The latter, hatched at
home in an incubator, formed the nucleus of a flock.

Pass the raising of ostrich chicks to full size through the difficulties
of disease, wild beasts, and sheer cussedness. Of the resultant thirty
birds or so of the season's catch, but two or three will even promise
good production. These must be bred in captivity with other likely
specimens. Thus after several years the industrious ostrich farmer may
become possessed of a few really prime birds. To accumulate a proper
flock of such in a new country is a matter of a decade or so. Extra
prime birds are as well known and as much in demand for breeding as any
blood horse in a racing country. Your true ostrich enthusiast, like the
Hills, possesses trunks full of feathers not good commercially, but
intensely interesting for comparison and for the purposes of prophecy.
While I stayed with them came a rumour of a very fine plucking a distant
neighbour had just finished from a likely two-year-old. The Hills were
manifestly uneasy until one of them had ridden the long distance to
compare this newcomer's product with that of their own two-year-olds.
And I shall never forget the reluctantly admiring shake of the head with
which he acknowledged that it was indeed a "very fine feather!"

But getting the birds is by no means all of ostrich farming, as many
eager experimenters have discovered to their cost. The birds must have a
certain sort of pasture land; and their paddocks must be built on an
earth that will not soil or break the edges of the new plumes.

And then there is the constant danger of wild beasts. When a man has
spent years in gathering suitable flocks, he cannot be blamed for wild
anger when, as happened while I was in the country, lions kill sixty or
seventy birds in a night. The ostrich seems to tempt lions greatly. The
beasts will make their way through and over the most complicated
defences. Any ostrich farmer's life is a constant warfare against them.
Thus the Hills had slain sixty-eight lions in and near their farm--a
tremendous record. Still the beasts continued to come in. My hosts
showed me, with considerable pride, their arrangements finally evolved
for night protection.

The ostriches were confined in a series of heavy corrals, segregating
the birds of different ages. Around the outside of this group of
enclosures ran a wide ring corral in which were confined the numerous
cattle; and as an outer wall to this were built the huts of the Wakamba
village. Thus to penetrate to the ostriches the enterprising lion would
have to pass both the people, the cattle, and the strong thorn and log
structures that contained them.

This subject brings me to another set of acquaintances we had already
made--the dogs.

These consisted of an Airedale named Ruby; two setters called Wayward
and Girlie; a heavy black mongrel, Nero; ditto brindle, Ben; and a
smaller black and white ditto, Ranger. They were very nice friendly
doggy dogs, but they did not look like lion hunters. Nevertheless, Hill
assured us that they were of great use in the sport, and promised us
that on the following day we should see just how.




XVIII

THE FIRST LIONESS.


At an early hour we loaded our bedding, food, tents, and camp outfit on
a two-wheeled wagon drawn by four of the humpbacked native oxen, and
sent it away across the plains, with instructions to make camp on a
certain kopje. Clifford Hill and myself, accompanied by our gunbearers
and syces, then rode leisurely down the length of a shallow brushy cañon
for a mile or so. There we dismounted and sat down to await the arrival
of the others. These--including Harold Hill, Captain D., five or six
Wakamba spearmen, our own carriers, and the dogs--came along more
slowly, beating the bottoms on the off chance of game.

The sun was just warming, and the bees and insects were filling the air
with their sleepy droning sounds. The hillside opposite showed many
little outcrops of rocks so like the hills of our own Western States
that it was somewhat difficult to realize that we were in Africa. For
some reason the delay was long. Then suddenly all four of us
simultaneously saw the same thing. A quarter-mile away and on the
hillside opposite a magnificent lioness came loping easily along through
the grass. She looked very small at that distance, like a toy, and quite
unhurried. Indeed, every few moments she paused to look back in an
annoyed fashion over her shoulder in the direction of the row behind
her.

There was nothing to do but sit tight and wait. The lioness was headed
exactly to cross our front; nor, except at one point, was she at all
likely to deviate. A shallow tributary ravine ran into our own about two
hundred yards away. She might possibly sneak down the bed of this. It
seemed unlikely. The going was bad, and in addition she had no idea as
yet that she had been sighted. Indeed, the chances were that she would
come to a definite stop before making the crossing, in which case we
would get a shot.

"And if she does go down the donga," whispered Hill, "the dogs will
locate her."

Sitting still while things approach is always exciting. This is true of
ducks; but when you multiply ducks by lions it is still more true. We
all crouched very low in the grass. She leapt without hesitation into
the ravine--and did not emerge.

This was a disappointment. We concluded she must have entered the stream
bottom, and were just about to move when Memba Sasa snapped his fingers.
His sharp eyes had discovered her sneaking along, belly to the ground,
like the cat she was. The explanation of this change in her gait was
simple. Our companions had rounded the corner of the hill and were
galloping in plain view a half-mile away. The lioness had caught sight
of them.

She was gliding by, dimly visible, through thick brush seventy yards
distant. Now I could make out a tawny patch that faded while I looked;
now I could merely guess at a melting shadow.

"Stir her up," whispered Hill. "Never mind whether you hit. She'll sneak
away."

At the shot she leaped fully out into the open with a snarl. Promptly I
planted a Springfield bullet in her ribs. She answered slightly to the
hit, but did not shift position. Her head up, her tail thrashing from
side to side, her ears laid back, she stood there looking the landscape
over carefully point by point. She was searching for us, but as yet
could not locate us. It was really magnificent.

I attempted to throw in another cartridge, but because of my desire to
work the bolt quietly, in order not to attract the lioness's attention,
I did not pull it back far enough, and the cartridge jammed in the
magazine. As evidence of Memba Sasa's coolness and efficiency, it is to
be written that he became aware of this as soon as I did. He thrust
the.405 across my right side, at the same time withdrawing the
Springfield on the left. The motion was slight, but the lioness caught
it. Immediately she dropped her head and charged.

For the next few moments, naturally, I was pretty intent on lions.
Nevertheless a corner of my mind was aware of Memba Sasa methodically
picking away at the jammed rifle, and paying no attention whatever to
the beast. Also I heard Hill making picturesque remarks about his
gunbearer, who had bolted with his second gun.

The lioness charged very fast, but very straight, about in the tearing,
scrambling manner of a terrier after a thrown ball. I got in the first
shot as she came, the bullet ranging back from the shoulder, and Hill
followed it immediately with another from his.404 Jeffrey. She growled
at the bullets, and checked very slightly as they hit, but gave no other
sign. Then our second shots hit her both together. The mere shock
stopped her short, but recovering instantly, she sprang forward again.
Hill's third shot came next, and perceptibly slowed and staggered, but
did not stop her. By this time she was quite close, and my own third
shot reached her brain. She rolled over dead.

Decidedly she was a game beast, and stood more hammering than any other
lion I killed or saw killed. Before the final shot in the brain she had
taken one light bullet and five heavy ones with hardly a wince. Memba
Sasa uttered a loud grunt of satisfaction when she went down for good.
He had the Springfield reloaded and cocked, right at my elbow.

Hill's gunboy hovered uncertainly some distance in the rear. The sight
of the charging lioness had been too much for him and he had bolted. He
was not actually up a tree; but he stood very near one. He lost the gun
and acquired a swift kick.

Our friends and the men now came up. The dogs made a great row over the
dead lioness. She was measured and skinned to accompaniment of the usual
low-hummed chantings. We had with us a small boy of ten or twelve years
whose job it was to take care of the dogs and to remove ticks. In fact
he was known as the Tick Toto. As this was his first expedition afield,
his father took especial pains to smear him with fat from the lioness.
This was to make him brave. I am bound to confess the effect was not
immediate.




XIX.

THE DOGS.


I soon discovered that we were hunting lions with the assistance of the
dogs; not that the dogs were hunting lions. They had not lost any lions,
not they! My mental pictures of the snarling, magnificent king of beasts
surrounded by an equally snarling, magnificent pack vanished into thin
air.

Our system was to cover as much likely country as we could, and to let
the dogs have a good time. As I have before indicated, they were
thoroughly doggy dogs, and interested in everything--except able-bodied
lions. None of the stick-at-your-heels in their composition. They ranged
far and wide through all sorts of cover, seeking what they could find in
the way of porcupines, mongoose, hares, birds, cats, and whatever else
should interest any healthy-minded dog. If there happened to be any
lions in the path of these rangings, the dogs retired rapidly,
discreetly, and with every symptom of horrified disgust. If a dog came
sailing out of a thicket, ki-yi-ing agitatedly, and took up his
position, tail between his legs, behind his master, we knew there was
probably a lion about. Thus we hunted lions with dogs.

But in order to be fair to these most excellent canines, it should be
recorded that they recovered a certain proportion of their nerve after a
rifle had been fired. They then returned warily to the--not
attack--reconnaissance. This trait showed touching faith, and was a real
compliment to the marksmanship of their masters. Some day it will be
misplaced. A little cautious scouting on their part located the wounded
beast; whereupon, at a respectful distance, they lifted their voices. As
a large element of danger in case of a wounded lion is the uncertainty
as to his whereabouts, it will be seen that the dogs were very valuable
indeed. They seemed to know exactly how badly hit any animal might
happen to be, and to gauge their distance accordingly, until at last,
when the quarry was hammered to harmlessness, they closed in and began
to worry the nearly lifeless carcass. By this policy the dogs had a lot
of fun hunting on their own hook, preserved their lives from otherwise
inevitable extinction, and were of great assistance in saving their
masters' skins.

One member of the pack, perhaps two, were, however, rather pathetic
figures. I refer to the setters, Wayward and Girlie. Ranger, Ruby, Ben,
and Nero scampered merrily over the landscape after anything that
stirred, from field mice to serval cats. All was game to their catholic
tastes; and you may be sure, in a country like Africa, they had few dull
moments. But Wayward and Girlie had been brought up in a more exclusive
manner. Their early instincts had been supplemented by a rigorous early
training. Game to them meant birds, and birds only. Furthermore, they
had been solemnly assured by human persons in whom they had the utmost
confidence, that but one sequence of events was permissible or even
thinkable in the presence of game. The Dog at first intimation by scent
must convey the fact to the Man, must proceed cautiously to locate
exactly, must then stiffen to a point which he must hold staunchly, no
matter how distracting events might turn out, or how long an interval
might elapse. The Man must next walk up the birds; shoot at them,
perhaps kill one, then command the Dog to retrieve. The Dog must on no
account move from his tracks until such command is given. All the affair
is perfectly simple; but quite inflexible. Any variation in this
procedure fills the honest bird dog's mind with the same horror and
dismay experienced by a well-brought-up young man who discovers that he
has on shoes of the wrong colour. It isn't done, you know.

Consider, then, Wayward and Girlie in a country full of game birds. They
quarter wide to right, then cross to left, their heads high, their
feather tails waving in the most approved good form. When they find
birds they draw to their points in the best possible style; stiffen
out--and wait. It is now, according to all good ethics, up to the Man.
And the Man and his companions go right on by, paying absolutely no
attention either to the situation or one's own magnificent piece of
work! What is one to conclude? That our early training is all wrong?
that we are at one experience to turn apostate to the settled and only
correct order of things? Or that our masters are no gentlemen? That is a
pretty difficult thing, an impossible thing, to conclude of one's own
master. But it leaves one in a fearful state mentally; and one has no
idea of what to do!

Wayward was a perfect gentleman, and he played the game according to
the very best traditions. He conscientiously pointed every bird he could
get his nose on. Furthermore he was absolutely staunch, and held his
point even when the four non-bird dogs rushed in ahead of him. The
expression of puzzlement, grief, shock, and sadness in his eyes deepened
as bird after bird soared away without a shot. Girlie was more
liberal-minded. She pointed her birds, and backed Wayward at need, but
when the other dogs rushed her point, she rushed too. And when we swept
on by her, leaving her on point, instead of holding it quixotically, as
did Wayward, until the bird sneaked away, she merely waited until we
were out of sight, and then tried to catch it. Finally Captain D.
remarked that, lions or no lions, he was not going to stand it any
longer. He got out a shotgun, and all one afternoon killed grouse over
Wayward, to the latter's intense relief. His ideals had been
rehabilitated.




XX.

BONDONI.


We followed many depressions, in which might be lions, until about three
o'clock in the afternoon. Then we climbed the gently-rising long slope
that culminated, far above the plains, in the peak of a hill called
Bondoni. From a distance it was steep and well defined; but, like most
of these larger kopjes, its actual ascent, up to the last few hundred
feet, was so gradual that we hardly knew we were climbing. At the summit
we found our men and the bullock cart. There also stood an oblong
blockhouse of stone, the walls two feet thick and ten feet high. It was
entered only by a blind angle passage, and was strong enough,
apparently, to resist small artillery. This structure was simply an
ostrich corral, and bitter experience had shown the massive construction
absolutely necessary as adequate protection, in this exposed and
solitary spot, against the lions.

We had some tea and bread and butter, and then Clifford Hill and I set
out afoot after meat. Only occasionally do these hard-working settlers
get a chance for hunting on the plains so near them; and now they had
promised their native retainers that they would send back a treat of
game. To carry this promised luxury, a number of the villagers had
accompanied the bullock wagon. As we were to move on next day, it became
very desirable to get the meat promptly while still near home.

We slipped over to the other side, and by good fortune caught sight of a
dozen zebras feeding in scrub half-way down the hill. They were out of
their proper environment up there, but we were glad of it. Down on our
tummies, then, we dropped, and crawled slowly forward through the high,
sweet grasses. We were in the late afternoon shadow of the hill, and we
enjoyed the mild skill of the stalk. Taking advantage of every cover,
slipping over into little ravines, lying very flat when one of the
beasts raised his head, we edged nearer and nearer. We were already well
within range, but it amused us to play the game. Finally, at one hundred
yards, we came to a halt. The zebra showed very handsome at that range,
for even their smaller leg stripes were all plainly visible. Of course
at that distance there could be small chance of missing, and we owned
one each. The Wakamba, who had been watching eagerly, swarmed down,
shouting.

We dined just at sunset under a small tree at the very top of the peak.
Long bars of light shot through the western clouds; the plain turned
from solid earth to a mysterious sea of shifting twilights; the buttes
stood up, wrapped in veils of soft desert colours; Kilimanjaro hung
suspended like a rose-coloured bubble above the abyss beyond the world.




XXI.

RIDING THE PLAINS.


From the mere point of view of lions, lion A hunting was very slow work
indeed. It meant riding the whole of long days, from dawn until dark,
investigating miles of country that looked all alike and in which we
seemed to get nowhere. One by one the long billows of plain fell behind,
until our camp hill had turned blue behind us, and we seemed to be out
in illimitable space, with no possibility, in an ordinary lifetime, of
ever getting in touch with anything again. What from above had looked as
level as a floor now turned into a tremendously wide and placid ground
swell. As a consequence we were always going imperceptibly up and up and
up to a long-delayed sky-line, or tipping as gently down the other side
of the wave. From crest to crest of these long billows measured two or
three miles. The vertical distance in elevation from trough to top was
perhaps not over fifty to one hundred feet.

Slowly we rode along the shallow grass and brush ravines in the troughs
of the low billows, while the dogs worked eagerly in and out of cover,
and our handful of savages cast stones and shouted. Occasionally we
divided forces, and beat the length of a hill, two of us lying in wait
at one end for the possible lion, the rest sweeping the sides and
summits. Many animals came bounding along, but no lions. Then Harold
Hill, unlimbering a huge, many-jointed telescope, would lie flat on his
back, and sight the fearsome instrument over his crossed feet, in a
general bird's-eye view of the plains for miles around. While he was at
it we were privileged to look about us, less under the burden of
responsibility. We could make out the game as little, light-coloured
dots and speckles, thousands upon thousands of them, thicker than cattle
ever grazed on the open range, and as far as the eye could make them
out, and then a glance through our glasses picked them up again for mile
after mile. Even the six-power could go no farther. The imagination was
left the vision of more leagues of wild animals even to the half-guessed
azure mountains--and beyond. I had seen abundant game elsewhere in
Africa, but nothing like the multitudes inhabiting the Kapiti Plains at
that time of year. In other seasons this locality is comparatively
deserted.

The glass revealing nothing in our line, we rode again to the lower
levels, and again took up our slow, painstaking search.

But although three days went by in this manner without our getting a
glimpse of lions, they were far from being days lost. Minor adventure
filled our hours. What elsewhere would be of major interest and strange
and interesting experience met us at every turn. The game, while
abundant, was very shy. This had nothing to do with distrust of hunters,
but merely with the fact that it was the season of green grass. We liked
to come upon animals unexpectedly, to see them buck-jump and cavort.

Otherwise we rode in a moving space cleared of animals, the beasts
unobtrusively giving way before us, and as unobtrusively closing in
behind. The sun flashed on the spears of savages travelling single file
across the distance. Often we stopped short to gaze upon a wild and
tumbled horizon of storm that Gustave Doré might have drawn.

The dogs were always joyously routing out some beast, desirable from
their point of view, and chasing it hopelessly about, to our great
amusement. Once they ran into a giant porcupine-about the size a setter
would be, with shorter legs-which did not understand running away. They
came upon it in a dense thicket, and the ensuing row was unholy. They
managed to kill the porcupine among them, after which we plucked barbed
quills from some very grieved dogs. The quills were large enough to make
excellent penholders. The dogs also swore by all canine gods that they
wouldn't do a thing to a hyena, if only they could get hold of one. They
never got hold of one, for the hyena is a coward. His skull and teeth,
however, are as big and powerful as those of a lioness; so I do not know
which was luckier in his avoidance of trouble--he or the dogs.

Nor from the shooting standpoint did we lack for sport. We had to shoot
for our men, and we occasionally needed meat ourselves. It was always
interesting, when such necessities arose, to stalk the shy buck and do
long-range rifle practice. This shooting, however, was done only after
the day's hunt was over. We had no desire to spoil our lion chances.

The long circle towards our evening camp always proved very long indeed.
We arrived at dusk to find supper ready for us. As we were old
campaigners we ate this off chop boxes as tables, and sat on the ground.
It was served by a Wakamba youth we had nicknamed Herbert Spencer, on
account of his gigantic intellect. Herbert meant well, but about all he
succeeded in accomplishing was a pathetically wrinkled brow of care and
scared eyes. He had never been harshly treated by any of us, but he
acted as though always ready to bolt. If there were twenty easy right
methods of doing a thing and one difficult wrong method, Herbert would
get the latter every time. No amount of experience could teach him the
logic of our simplest ways. One evening he brought a tumbler of mixed
water and condensed milk. Harold Hill glanced into the receptacle.

"Stir it," he commanded briefly.

Herbert Spencer obeyed. We talked about something else. Some five or ten
minutes later one of us noticed that Herbert was still stirring, and
called attention to the fact. When the latter saw our eyes were on him
he speeded up until the spoon fairly rattled in the tumbler. Then, when
he thought our attention had relaxed again, he relaxed also his
efforts--the spoon travelled slower and slower in its dreamy circle. We
amused ourselves for some time thus. Then we became so weak from
laughter that we fell backward off our seats, and some one gasped a
command that Herbert cease.

I am afraid, after a little, that we rather enjoyed mildly tormenting
poor Herbert Spencer. He tried so hard, and looked so scared, and was so
unbelievably stupid! Almost always he had to pick his orders word by
word from a vast amount of high-flown, unnecessary English.

"O Herbert Spencer," the command would run, "if you would condescend to
bend your mighty intellect to the lowly subject of maji, and will snatch
time from your profound cerebrations to assure its being moto sans, I
would esteem it infinite condescension on your part to let pesi pesi."

And Herbert, listening to all this with a painful, strained intensity,
would catch the six-key words, and would falter forth a trembling "N'dio
bwana."

Somewhere down deep within Herbert Spencer's make up, however, was a
sense of moral duty. When we finally broke camp for good, on the great
hill of Lucania, Herbert Spencer, relieved from his job, bolted like a
shot. As far as we could see him he was running at top speed. If he had
not possessed a sense of duty, he would have done this long ago.

We camped always well up on some of the numerous hills; for, although
anxious enough to find lions in the daytime, we had no use for them at
all by night. This usually meant that the boys had to carry water some
distance. We kept a canvas bath-tub full for the benefit of the dogs,
from which they could drink at any time. This necessary privilege after
a hard day nearly drove Captain D. crazy. It happened like this:

We were riding along the slope of a hillside, when in the ravine, a half
mile away and below us, we saw something dark pop up in sight and then
down again. We shouted to some of the savage Wakamba to go and
investigate. They closed in from all sides, their long spears poised to
strike. At the last moment out darted, not an animal, but a badly
frightened old man armed with bow and arrow. He dashed out under the
upraised spears, clasped one of the men around the knees, and implored
protection. Our savages, their spears ready, glanced over their
shoulders for instruction. They would have liked nothing better than to
have spitted the poor old fellow.

We galloped down as fast as possible to the rescue. With reluctance our
spearmen drew back, releasing their prize. We picked up his scattered
bows and arrows, restored them to him, and uttered many reassurances. He
was so badly frightened that he could not stand for the trembling of his
knees. Undoubtedly he thought that war had broken out, and that he was
the first of its unconscious victims. After calming him down, we told
him what we were doing, and offered to shoot him meat if he cared to
accompany us. He accepted the offer with joy. So pleased and relieved
was he, that he skipped about like a young and nimble goat. His hunting
companion, who all this time had stood atop of a hill at a safe
distance, viewed these performances with concern. Our captive shouted
loudly for him to come join us and share in the good fortune. Not he! He
knew a trap when he saw one! Not a bit disturbed by the tales this man
would probably carry back home, our old fellow attached himself to us
for three days!

Near sundown, to make our promise good, and also to give our own men a
feast, I shot two hartebeeste near camp.

The evening was beautiful. The Machakos Range, miles distant across the
valley, was mantled with thick, soft clouds. From our elevation we could
see over them, and catch the glow of moonlight on their upper surfaces.
We were very tired, so we turned in early and settled ourselves for a
good rest.

Outside our tent the little "Injun fire" we had built for our own
comfort died down to coals. A short distance away, however, was a huge
bonfire around which all the savages were gathered. They squatted
comfortably on their heels, roasting meat. Behind each man was planted
his glittering long-bladed spear. The old man held the place of honour,
as befitted his flirtation with death that morning. Everybody was
absolutely happy--a good fire, plenty of meat, and strangers with whom
to have a grand "shauri." The clatter of tongues was a babel, for almost
every one talked at once and excitedly. Those who did not talk crooned
weird, improvised chants, in which they detailed the doings of the camp.

We fell very quickly into the half doze of too great exhaustion. It
never became more than a half doze. I suppose every one who reads this
has had at some time the experience of dropping asleep to the
accompaniment of some noise that ought soon to cease--a conversation in
the next room, singing, the barking of a dog, the playing of music, or
the like. The fact that it ought soon to cease, permits the falling
asleep. When, after an interval, the subconsciousness finds the row
still going on, inexcusable and unabated, it arouses the victim to
staring exasperation. That was our case here. Those natives should have
turned in for sleep after a reasonable amount of pow-wow. They did
nothing of the kind. On the contrary, I dragged reluctantly back to
consciousness and the realization that they had quite happily settled
down to make a night of it. I glanced across the little tent to where
Captain D. lay on his cot. He was staring straight upward, his eyes wide
open.

After a few seconds he slipped out softly and silently. Our little fire
had sunk to embers. A dozen sticks radiated from the centre of coals.
Each made a firebrand with one end cool to the grasp. Captain D. hurled
one of these at the devoted and unconscious group.

It whirled through the air and fell plunk in the other fire, scattering
sparks and coals in all directions. The second was under way before the
first had landed. It hit a native with similar results, plus astonished
and grieved language. The rest followed in rapid-magazine-fire. Every
one hit its mark fair and square. The air was full of sparks exploding
in all directions. The brush was full of Wakamba, their blankets
flapping in the breeze of their going. The convention was adjourned.
There fell the sucking vacuum of a great silence. Captain D., breathing
righteous wrath, flopped heavily and determinedly down on his cot. I
caught a faint 

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