“It will, however, be a matter of time and difficulty, requiring great tact, patience, and firmness, to induce these Wa-Kikuyu to have confidence in Europeans, and to discontinue their practice of spearing or otherwise murdering any defenceless Swahili porter whom they may find straying away by himself.
“Long before I went to their country myself I remember being told by an African traveller of great renown that the only way in which to deal with the Kikuyu people, whether singly or in masses, was to ‘shoot at sight.’”
The Martin mentioned by Sir Gerald Portal above was one of the pioneers of British East Africa. He was a Maltese sailor, who came to this country with Joseph Thompson, and was the first white man to venture among the Masai. He now manages the Mabira forest rubber estate.
Another traveller, Mr. G. F. Scott Elliott, speaking of the Kikuyu in his book, “A Naturalist in Mid Africa,” says: “They are only too anxious to spear a lagging porter.”[[4]] He also describes the murder by these people of forty-nine out of fifty men composing an Arab or Swahili trading caravan.
[4]. For further reference to the Kikuyu tribe see Professor Gregory’s excellent book “The Great Rift Valley,” 1896.
Later on I was destined to be the first white man to live amongst this pleasant people, enter into their daily life, and bring them into something like close touch with European civilization.
We were warned to be very careful when we reached the Kikuyu country, and to keep a good guard, as they had a very bad name, being very treacherous and not to be trusted in any way; but, keeping a sharp look-out, we passed the boundary without any interference from them. We kept to the caravan road, which passed along the outskirts of the country, as we were told that every caravan going through the country had had trouble with the natives, having had porters killed and goods stolen.
About this time Gibbons left me and pushed on ahead, as we were anxious to get the loads through, while, the surrounding country being splendid grazing ground, I remained about a week to give the animals a rest before crossing the practically uninhabited district which lay between my present camp and the ravine—the station on the road to Uganda for which I was bound.
Being short of donkeys, some having died on the road, I decided to redistribute the loads, and make the total weight somewhat less by leaving some of my personal belongings behind. Among the things I left was my tent. This I had good cause to regret later on. We had been gradually rising nearly all the way as we approached the high escarpment of the Kedong Valley, which is about five thousand feet above sea-level, and therefore very cold, and the absence of my tent caused me considerable discomfort.
Arriving at the top of the escarpment and looking down the precipitous slope on the farther side, the first question was how we were to get the wagons down into the valley, where we could see a number of Masai villages, the road being very narrow and full of holes, besides being plentifully strewn with boulders.