CHAPTER III
Mombasa, British-East Africa, was not reached until 19 days after sailing from Durban, although we traveled but 2,000 miles. It was a very interesting trip, though, along the East Coast, as the ship stopped so often to unload and take on cargo, that passengers obtained a fair idea of that part of the world.
Back in the early '80's England and Germany resorted to every diplomatic device to acquire that great tract of country now known as German East Africa and British East Africa. The Sultan of Zanzibar exercised control of a strip of the coastline, ten miles deep, north of Portuguese East Africa to Italian Somaliland, which naturally blocked the development of the interior. The claims of the two great countries were finally settled by Germany getting the southern part of the domain and England the northern part. The Sultan of Zanzibar still claims sovereignty of the ten-mile shore strip of the Indian Ocean, but in reality it is gone from him. The authentic history of East Africa commences in 1498, when Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer, anchored off Mombasa.
Mombasa, located on Mombasa Island, is the chief seaport on the East Coast north of Durban and Lourenzo Marques. It has had a checkered career, being held at various times by Persians, Arabs, Egyptians, Portuguese and British. To-day the blacks number 30,000 and the whites about 500. Like most tropical places, the surroundings are naturally attractive, but fever is always present, and bubonic plague or smallpox may break out at any moment.
Three years is the limit of residence here for a European. Some part of the human system is bound to give way if one does not leave before the three-year period expires. Two and a half years' residence and six months' vacation in Europe is the usual custom. The tropical climate seems to center its force on the muscles of the stomach, and this is one reason why every one wears flannel bands. Most of the business men are Asiatics. Natives take the place of horses here also, goods being moved on trucks pushed and pulled by black men. England's solid system of doing things is in evidence at every turn—notably in the good, clean streets, parks and docks.
Before the railroad was pushed to the eastern shore of Victoria Nyanza the daring Europeans of early days had to travel four months before the western terminus was reached. Nowadays two days' travel by rail will take one into the heart of Africa. The country then, as it is more or less to-day, was alive with ferocious beasts, and some of the native tribes were warlike. During the winter season there is no rain for a period of from four to six months. Only men of iron would tackle such a journey. The Arabs, however, had preceded the whites.
On the Uganda Railway we boarded a train for Nairobi. For some distance the road passed through a tropical growth, when we entered the Taru Desert. Small trees of dense and thorny spreading limbs grow on this land. The lower limbs are brashy and bare of bark, and the ones above are leafless and gnarled, although alive. The Taru Desert is a leafless jungle. No bird life was apparent save vultures, whose repulsive appearance seemed in keeping with the growth on which they rested. Fever trees were mentioned earlier in this Leg, and those growing here suggested the possibility of their exuding something noxious—if not odors leading to some form of fever, then, perhaps, to stomach trouble.
A lone native, and often groups, were seen, with only a clout about the loins, carrying a long pole with a spear fixed to the end, at the station or traversing a native path leading somewhere, as there were no signs of habitation near the railway. Erect, slender, bareheaded and barefooted, he looked every inch the savage warrior one reads about.
The track is meter gauge, three feet six inches, and the railway coaches, of two compartments, are small, each compartment accommodating six persons, 12 in all. The South African system—the best in the world—of providing free sleeping berths for passengers, has been adopted by the Uganda Railway Company. Four berths are provided in each compartment, but no bedding is furnished. Breakfast costs 32 cents, and luncheon and dinner 50 cents. Railway fare is only two cents a mile, and the speed 14 miles an hour.
"Dak bungalow" proved a new building term to us, and another was the "godown." The dak bungalow serves the purpose of a hotel and is located at stations. These were built by the railway company for the convenience of passengers living in isolated places who used a certain station when traveling. The bungalow, which may be used one night free of charge, is provided with spring beds, but no bedding. The godown is a freight shed—any building where goods or cargo are stored is called a godown. Both terms are Asiatic. It would be a risky undertaking to start through some parts of that country at night, as many sections are infested with wild beasts. The agents at the stations were Indians.
We were traveling over a section of country that had not been refreshed with rain for months. The soil being reddish, passengers' clothes resembled those worn by workers in a red brickyard. Conversations that had taken place between travelers during the voyage along the East Coast, of big game being seen within easy view of the railway in these parts, which swayed me from my original route at Zanzibar, were foremost in my mind at this point. Skeptical of feasting the eye on herds of zebra, gazelle, wildebeeste, even giraffe, and other game, my doubts were dispelled when a passenger remarked:
"This is Makindu, where nature's zoo starts." "Do you think the game will be close enough to see from the train?" "They're on the veld all the time—see the zebra to the right?" he replied. Turning quickly in that direction, there they were, a solid foreground of striped beasts, not more than half a mile off the railway. The marvelous sight of thousands of zebra within easy view extended to the horizon. "You'll always find zebras huddled closely together," he interestingly went on, "as they have an eternal fear of lions, who are partial to zebra flesh," he explained. "The hardest animal in Africa to tame is the zebra," he continued. "This animal can be ridden, and is sometimes attached to a light vehicle, but it cannot be trusted. The fear of lions has for ages been so firmly bred in the bone of this attractive beast that, no matter how kindly handled, its wildness is always evident.
"Giraffes are generally seen browsing in the brush," kept on my companion. "They're sometimes called camelopards, owing to being spotted like a leopard and having a long neck like a camel. See!" he exclaimed, pointing, "there's five of them and a calf." One could scarcely believe his own eyes. Sure enough, there stood five long-necked, brown and white spotted, stubby-horned, slant-backed giraffes and a calf, standing in brush lower than their bodies, 100 feet from the railway track. As the train was passing they turned around and ambled clumsily further into the brush.
"All that game you see to the right are hartebeeste and gazelles," my companion went on. "Keep watching to the left, though, as we may see more giraffes, for that stretch of brush will soon be passed, when there'll be no more chance to see that big game. He's a browser, you know, not a grazer. There are two more—a nice pair!" he added. Sure as you're born, there stood two noble giraffes. Like the group of five with a calf, they turned and hobbled further into the undergrowth. "We're about out of the brush now, so I don't think we'll see more of them," he said. What I had already seen amply offset the $15 exchange charged me at the Zanzibar bank.
Simba was the name of a station as we entered the game fields; the meaning of the word "simba" is lion in the native tongue. More than a score of persons were killed by the king of beasts at this place, it is said, while building the railroad.
"Those smaller animals you see together yonder are a pack of hyena," continued my traveling mate. "There are more zebra to the left. The animals further along are blue wildebeeste (gnu), larger than the South African breed. See the ostrich?" (pointing). There they were, big black and white birds, with wings flopping, running over the plains, not a fence within hundreds of miles—as wild as wild could be.
"We may see a lion before we reach Nairobi; I've seen them on several occasions while traveling over this stretch of country," he added. A lion did not show himself, but, as my companion said, they are frequently seen prowling over the treeless plains from the railroad.
For over a hundred miles the traveler looks out upon great herds of game feeding on both sides of the railway track. Gazelles have become so tame that they sometimes keep grazing as the train passes by; and the hartebeeste, or kongonie, much larger than the gazelle, with a wedge-shaped head and an outline of body resembling the giraffe, is nearly as numerous as the clean-cut, nimble gazelle. The wildebeeste is seen feeding and swishing his tail as contentedly as a cow in a pasture. Ostriches and zebras are on their native heath. Tigers, and other game also, may be seen while traveling through this most interesting stretch of country.
These plains, like an American prairie, are free of timber; and as far as the eye can see, from 50 feet off the railway track—to the horizon, in fact,—from Makindu to Nairobi, over a hundred miles, the eye feasts on a sportsman's paradise.
We reached Nairobi 23 hours after leaving Mombasa, 327 miles separating the chief port and the capital. What a terrible mixture of blacks was congregated on the platform and about the railway station! They were as numerous and black as flies around a barrel of molasses on a hot day. We were certainly in Darkest Africa. The ricksha is the hack of Nairobi. One starts for his hotel, with a native in the shafts and another pushing, a jingle-jangle taking place all the while. The pullers, while less fantastic and grotesque than their Zulu brothers in Durban, still have distinctiveness, namely, in wearing small bells about ankles and arms; the tinkle from these is constantly heard about the streets. For some distance from the station one is drawn along a level road, bordered with eucalyptus trees, to the business center. Wood and iron buildings—corrugated iron—are mostly used in both dwelling houses and business places. There is no paving on the streets, no sidewalks, nothing inviting, about the capital of the British-East Africa Protectorate; but there is no grass growing on the streets, every one seemingly infused with a "boom" spirit. One finds, however, in this place a good, stone-built post office, a stone-built Treasury building, and structures of the same material under course of construction.
Nairobi was the blackest town visited. Though considerable building was being done, a white man—such as carpenter, mason, plasterer or bricklayer—was not seen engaged at that class of work, all labor being done by Indians; most of the contractors also were Indians. The wages paid these blacks are from $1 to $1.25 a day. Natives carrying the hod, or bucket, rather, are paid from 6 to 12 cents a day.
Mention was made in Leg Four of Suva, Fiji, having a daily newspaper, by reason of two tri-weeklies appearing on alternate days. In Nairobi, however, two daily newspapers appear on six mornings of the week, and besides these there are also weekly and monthly publications issued. Together with local news, brief cable dispatches are printed, enough to keep one in touch with important events taking place over the world. Even linotype machines are found in that sparsely settled, out-of-the-way place. The Indian here, as everywhere, when he gets a foothold, has the printing trade killed in so far as a white man getting good wages is concerned. He sets type after a fashion for $15 to $18 a month.
In order that the reader may draw an accurate conclusion as to the meaning of the term "Darkest Africa," Nairobi, with only 1,200 whites, has the largest European population of any city north of Salisbury and Bulawayo (Rhodesia) as far as Cairo, (Egypt), or in the full length of Africa to the west and northwest.
The negro is not the horse of Nairobi. While few horses are seen, native oxen, with humps on their shoulders almost as large as a dromedary's, lumber through the streets yoked to wagons loaded with merchandise.
As the Zulu language is the key to the tribal dialects of South Africa, the Kiswahili language is likewise the key to the many native dialects in this section of Africa. The word "Wa" is plural in the Kiswahili language, and is prefixed to the name of a person or a tribe; "M" prefixed means man or individual; "U," in the same way, means place or locality, and "Ki" prefixed indicates the language. As an example, the Masai tribe would be Wamasai, Mmasai would be a Masai man, Umasai would be Masailand, and Kimasai would mean the Masai dialect or language.
Professor Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, an exponent of the philosophy of clothes, held that a majority of the people of the world devoted too much attention to the matter of unnecessary dress, a failing that militated against their moral and spiritual welfare. The men of this tribe, gaunt and gawky, wear nothing but a sort of shirt—a piece of cloth, with a hole in the center large enough to admit a head through, secured by neither string, band, nor suspenders. The original color of the shirt might once have been a mongrel brown, similar to unbleached muslin, but, as the Wakikuyu observe few wash days, the "garment" is usually many shades darker. Shoes and head covering, like the breeches, are also tabooed.
The Wakikuyu was the worst native tribe we had seen. The men looked half-starved, and it was tiresome to see them work. Excavation was being made for the foundation of a building, the dirt being carried out in small pans; sometimes these would not contain more than a cupful of earth. When coming up the incline from the excavation to the street their gait was that of a crippled snail. They receive from 6 to 12 cents a day, and possibly may earn it.
The women of the Wakikuyu tribe, on the other hand, are hard workers. They till the land, and raise flocks of goats, sheep, and cattle. They wear more clothing than the men, their principal covering being a tanned sheep or goat skin that has been soaked with grease. Dust and dirt coming in contact with the greased skin naturally give the garment an untidy appearance. What seems a cruel fashion among the women of this tribe is the mutilation of their ears. The lobes are slit, and thick chunks of sugar-cane, bamboo, calabashes, or other round articles, from the size of a thread spool to the circumference of a teacup, are pressed through. The plug and "ear bands" resemble an elastic band a quarter of an inch in width placed around a drinking glass. The plug is short, from two to three inches in length. These are forced between the "ear bands" so snugly that they will not fall out while the wearer is moving about. The woman wearing the largest plug is the best dressed, according to Wakikuyu fashion, and is envied by those of her sisters whose ear-lobes will not accommodate the larger "ornament." In many instances the punctured lobe is so extended that it becomes a loop, the ends of which sometimes rest on the shoulders. When not in use, so to speak, the ear loop is hung up on the top of the ear and seems to be secured by a knot made in that extended and flexible member. She carries her babe inside her goatskin covering in front, and a heavy basket of wood, potatoes, or other things on her back. A strap passes across her forehead, the ends secured to the basket. The great weights carried in the baskets make in time an indentation in the forehead the width of the strap.
A native of that tribe would prefer to be killed rather than touch anything dead—even a rat. If one of their number should suddenly die in the hut, every one would immediately move out and leave the dead member behind. Before taking final leave of the old home, however, time is taken to dig a hole under the side of the hut large enough to admit either a jackal or hyena, when the body would be left to be devoured by these beasts later. The Mkikuyu, though, in order to retain his abode, takes care that few deaths take place in the hut. When a member of a family becomes sick he is taken out of and led some distance away from the home and laid on the ground. Those accompanying the sick native may, with a short stick or wood, the ends resting in two crotches made of four shorter pieces held by a grass band, lay his head on the native "pillow," close to a lone thorn bush, with a short piece of goatskin covering the body. If the negro recovers he is taken back to the hut. While thus holding vigil on the veld, a vulture may be seen soaring above where the native is lying, with others appearing to view in the distance, and in the background the forms of jackals and the outline of slinking hyenas may also be apparent, for these vultures and beasts seem to know, not alone through instinct, but from former similar settings, that the body of the native, when life has left it, will not be put underground nor be removed by the superstitious tribesmen.
Many of the natives are smeared with reddish, greasy clay from head to foot. The hair, worn long by some, is plastered and shaped to resemble a turtle, with head jutting out and tail extended. They wear no shoes, and seldom a hat. One sees the native in British East Africa little different than he lived a thousand years ago.
Men wearing two soft, broad-brimmed felt hats strikes one as out of the ordinary. Nairobi is but 80 miles south of the Equator, and heavy head-covering must be worn to guard against sunstroke. Helmets are worn by a great many, but the two hats, the top one over the under one, are worn as commonly as the helmet.
A library is one of the features of the town. An electric light plant was seen here; also bioscope theaters. One thing Nairobi did not have—colored postcards that were of any interest. Motor cars spin about the streets. Food, clothes and living expenses are cheaper in Nairobi than in South Africa. Hotel accommodation was but $1.60 a day.
Coffee growing is a promising industry of that section of the Protectorate. A French mission is located a few miles from Nairobi, and the fathers, some fifteen years ago, experimented with the coffee bush. It proved a success, and several large plantations have since been established. An exorbitant price is asked for land in this district.
Irish potatoes grow in these parts, but not along the coast. The altitude of Nairobi is 5,000 feet, and, while the sun is hot in the daytime, the nights are cool.
Vigil on the Veld (top).
British East Africa.
"Trolley" Pushers (bottom).
Beira, Portuguese East Africa.
See page [230].
Most of the big-game hunting parties are equipped in Nairobi. The guides are about the town every few days, and a lion is guaranteed to be killed or no charge required. Eight lions were killed not far from here during our stay. One may stroll a mile from the center of the town, sit on a hill, and watch herds of gazelle grazing not a half mile away. The black-and-white monkey comes from this section of Africa.
"Boy! boy! boy!" is heard from nearly every room in a hotel in the morning. Everybody has a boy to black his shoes, lace his shoes, put away his clothes after dusting, get his shaving outfit—the sort of waiting on that spoils the white man. The hallways of the hotel are crowded with the guests' black servants. No one thinks of carrying a valise or bundle of any kind. The "boy" is expected to be in the hallway morning, noon and night waiting to serve his master.
Mount Kenia, 18,000 feet high, located directly under the Equator and 80 miles from Nairobi, may be seen from the town any clear day; also Mount Kilimanjaro, 19,000 feet high, about the same distance south of this place.
The Uganda Railway headquarters is located at Nairobi. Some of the locomotives used on this road are of American manufacture, easily distinguishable from English-built engines, for American-built locomotives are the only ones which carry a bell. The locomotive engineers are nearly all Indians. The Uganda Railway is a paying concern, for dividends of 33 per cent. are declared nearly every year. Passenger fare is reasonable, but freight charges are said to be very high. It cost $50,000 a mile to build the Uganda Railway, which is 584 miles in length.
The various native tribes have peculiar marks by which they are distinguished. One tribe may have a certain tooth missing; another the end of their teeth filed to a sharp point; still another may have their teeth nicked, like a saw, done with a stone; or by other marks, easily distinguished.
Horse racing, football, cricket, and other English sports are indulged in. Saturday afternoon is devoted to recreation, as the Saturday half-holiday is observed. Government employees form a considerable proportion of the population.