I might say here that the porters of East Africa, taking them all round, are a happy, careless lot. They will go through the greatest hardships on a journey, and on their return at once forget all their troubles in the pleasure of spending their wages as quickly as possible. They are chiefly Swahili, with a mixture of a few other tribes, such as the Wakamba. The Masai, however, even to this day, will not lower themselves to carry loads.
I had by this time learned a little of the language, and had hopes that by the time I returned Gibbons would have got back, and we should be able to start on the journey we had originally planned. News travels quickly in Africa—indeed, with such remarkable speed as to be mysterious to the European mind—and I had heard that Gibbons was still up in Uganda, and later I received a letter to say that he was ill.
This question of the rapid transmission of news among the native races, both in Africa and India, has for a long time been a favourite subject for discussion and argument among white men who have had much to do with the native races. The well-known instances of the disaster to Hicks Pasha’s force and the fall of Khartoum being known in the bazaars of Cairo long before any official intimation was received by the Government are cases in point. Personally, after fifteen years spent in close association with natives in Africa, I have absolutely no belief in the theory of any superhuman agency being employed. In the first place, there is always the fact that much of this wonderfully transmitted news is false, which discounts the value of such news generally and discredits its value though it turns out afterwards to be true. The white man who has sufficient experience of the nigger and his ways can generally winnow the grain of truth from the bushel of fiction with which it is wrapped about; while in the next place it must be borne in mind that the natives nearly all have recognized methods of passing news quickly from one point to another, of which I may mention a few.
The Kikuyu shouts his news from hill to hill, while the Masai runner thinks no more of carrying a message sixty miles in a day than we should of a three-mile stroll: the Congolese have a system of whistle signals, by which they can convey messages from one end of a district to the other in a very short time; while the West African native tells his news from village to village by means of a sort of Morse code, tapped out on drums. The Matabele uses a system of signalling by long and short obscurations of a fire, by means of a skin, or in daytime by long or short puffs of smoke regulated by the same means; while the Red Indian of North America was in the habit of using a similar method of communication. By these various methods it is quite possible to convey news enormous distances in a remarkably short space of time, and I think that they are quite sufficient to account for the many remarkable stories told of this sort of thing, without calling in the theory of any unknown agency at all.
I accomplished the trip with the food for the soldiers without any mishap, and began the return journey to railhead, travelling light, with nothing on the wagons; and having by this time become thoroughly used to the work, and knowing better how to handle the men, things went much more smoothly than on the previous trip.
The nights being cooler, and much more pleasant for travelling, we took advantage of the moonlight for our treks, resting during the daytime so that the donkeys could graze. There was something very fascinating about this moonlight travelling in the clear night air, with the stillness only broken by the sound of the wagon wheels and the patter of the donkeys’ hoofs, whilst the long procession of black porters looked ghostly in the semi-darkness. Occasionally the surrounding silence would be broken by the sound of some wild animal disturbed by our approach, then all was quiet again.
As we were travelling light, it was not necessary to have all the donkeys inspanned in the wagons, and the spare animals were allowed to run loose alongside, stopping occasionally as they went along to crop a few mouthfuls of grass, then trotting on again to join the caravan. I was lying down on one of the wagons, half dozing, one night, when I was roused by the donkeys suddenly increasing their pace, and looking up, I saw a lion stealthily approaching one of the donkeys running loose by the roadside. I immediately jumped off the wagon and called to the men, but by this time the donkeys were all bolting with fright, and it was only with a good deal of difficulty that the wagons were stopped. By now the lion I had first seen was nowhere in sight, but another, probably his mate, was approaching the donkeys from another direction. I could see him coming leisurely along, evidently intent on a feed, and I prepared to receive him. I had still the same old gun, and having only a few cartridges, I waited for the animal to approach near, so as to become as good a target as possible. The brute had, so far, been facing me, and as moonlight is deceptive, to get a good shot I allowed him to come as close as I thought advisable. Just as I was going to fire he stopped, apparently uncertain what to make of the situation, and as I hesitated for a moment he turned slightly, and I fired immediately, and hit him in the shoulder. With a savage growl, he gave a jump into the air, and then began to tear up the ground in a great rage. The sound of the report and the growls of the lion again caused the donkeys to bolt, which spoiled my aim for the second shot. I could tell that I had wounded him severely, and thought that I would go into camp, as I had intended, a little farther on, and then return when daylight came and find out whether I had really killed him. It was about three o’clock when we camped, and we remained quiet for about two and a half hours waiting until it was sufficiently light to go out again to look for him. Going back to the spot where the encounter had taken place, we found a large quantity of blood, which showed that I had wounded him severely, but the lion was not to be seen. After following the blood spoor for about a mile I saw the animal crouching in the scrub. We had been going very cautiously, and had got within about twenty yards of him, before we were made aware of his presence by a deep growl. Kneeling down and taking careful aim, I fired two or three shots, which I knew must have hit him by the thud of the bullet. Past experience had taught me not to approach too closely until certain that the brute was dead, as they are often most dangerous when you least expect it, so we waited some time before approaching the body, when we found that the last shots had really settled him. The boys skinned the carcass, and a great scramble ensued for the fat, which is greatly valued for certain healing properties it is supposed to possess. I know myself that it is a grand thing for rheumatism. The skin was brought back to the camp, at Lake Elmenteita, in triumph. This camp was known to the natives by the name of Camp Mabrook, from the fact that a big Arab trader named Mabrook, with all his safari, was murdered there while on his way up to Uganda.
My present safari I had equipped with the proceeds of my first trip to the Ravine, and as both trips had been successful, I was doing well. I had also heard from Gibbons that he was not coming back, and so the donkeys and wagons fell to me, as my share of the partnership.
My next contract was to carry rice for the porters accompanying the railway surveyors going from railhead up the Molo River, the distance being about the same as to the Ravine, but the road in this case branched off at Nakuru, going up more directly towards the Lake Victoria Nyanza.
As I was getting 30 rupees a load for this transport, and carrying 100 loads, I stood to make £200 on the journey, my expenses not being more than £50 for the trip. But it so happened that I was rather unlucky. Everything went well until I branched off at Nakuru, where I had to leave the caravan road and strike off across country. Here the road was so difficult for the wagons that I could only make a few miles each day. To add to our troubles, water was very scarce, and when we had travelled two days without finding any, both donkeys and men were exhausted, and I began to feel doubtful of getting through.