I decided to camp at the top for the night and make a start early the next morning. That night on the top of the mountain taught me a lesson—never again to travel without my tent. Besides the discomfort of the cold, there is always the danger of getting a dose of fever, and this was what I did on the present occasion.
Rousing the camp at a very early hour, we set to work to devise some means of getting the caravan down the side of the escarpment. There were no brakes on the wagons, and the donkeys would not go down even without the wagons unless they were absolutely driven. So, to get the wagons down, I tried a plan of my own, which, at the first attempt, came very near to killing me.
Taking the donkeys out of the wagon, I placed a boy on each side with a rope to ease it down, while I took hold of the shaft. When it went too fast, I told the boys to put stones under the wheels to check the pace, and so let it down gradually. As I had already shown them how to place stones at the back of the wheels in coming up the hill to prevent the wagon running back, I thought that they would have the sense to see that the stones must be put in front when going down hill. The result impressed upon me the fact that the nigger cannot argue from analogy, but that everything you wish him to do must be carefully explained in the fullest detail.
We got along all right until the hill-side began to get very steep, and I found the boys could not hold the wagon. They started to let go, and I shouted to them to get the stones in place. Their stupidity would have been laughable if my position had not been so serious. Instead of putting the stones in front of the wheels, they put them at the back, as they had been taught to do when we were getting the wagons up the hill, and seemed surprised when the wagon ran away from the stones, and before I could make them understand what I wanted, the boys at the ropes had let go. Being unable to let go myself, I had to hang on like grim death, while the wagon went tearing down the slope. One minute I was bumping on the road and the next I was in the air, with trees and other things whizzing past. By making the best use of my chances when my feet touched the ground, I managed to keep the wagon on the road until very near the bottom of the hill, when it ran over a hole and capsized. Luckily very little damage was done, but it took us the whole day to get all the wagons and animals down, and when we camped at night every one was thoroughly tired out with the hard day’s work.
The valley was very fertile, and made a splendid grazing ground for cattle, the Masai regularly bringing their stock there to graze at certain seasons of the year, and at the time of our arrival a large number of them were camping on the spot with their herds of stock.
While out shooting one day in the valley, one of my porters showed me the spot where he said a trader named Dick, with five or six hundred of his men, had been murdered by the Masai. Dick himself had shot seventeen of his assailants before he was killed. I went to examine the ground, and found it covered with so large a number of skulls and bones that I was inclined to think that the boy had used less than the usual native amount of exaggeration in telling the story. So far as I know, no attempt has ever been made to punish the Masai for this massacre. Another of the porters, on my asking him how he had lost an eye, told me that it had been torn out by the Masai—formerly a common practice of theirs when they caught any Arab or Swahili traders passing through their country. They were habitually very offensive to strangers, generally forcing them to camp a considerable distance from water, which they then proceeded to make them buy, their practice being to stick a spear into the ground, and make the trader pay in goods, brass and iron wire, and beads, as the case might be, to the height of the spear, before they would let him pass.
As I have said, there were a number of Masai in the valley, but I had no trouble with them; many of them came into camp with milk, which I bought from them. I found that it had a distinctly smoky taste, due to the gourds in which it is carried being hung over the fire to clean them.
The Masai always seemed well disposed towards me, and, as is their custom when they wish to be polite, paid me the compliment of spitting on their hands before shaking hands with me. The bearing of the elmoran, or warriors, was certainly truculent and insulting, but I managed not to give offence, and even succeeded in trading with them for a few donkeys to replace those of mine which had died on the road, and one which had been killed by a hyena; and when the animals were sufficiently rested, we were able to resume our journey to Lake Naivasha, where there is a Government station, without further incident of note.
The natives along the Uganda Road were now beginning to get accustomed to the altered state of things. Caravans were going through the country regularly, and they had sense enough to understand that the white man had come to stay, and any attempt to oppose his coming would probably have serious consequences for themselves, resulting in the loss of their herds and their best grazing-grounds. Of course they did not realize all this at once. The old fighting spirit of the warriors could not be entirely checked in a moment, but it was only in isolated instances that they dared to attack the white intruders; they had always been accustomed to make war on the neighbouring tribes as they pleased, and up to recent years would raid portions of British East African territory, and make organized descents into German East Africa. To the present day they will carry off cattle whenever the opportunity offers, arguing that, as the original owners of all the cattle in the country, they are perfectly within their rights in helping themselves.
