They looked upon me as a great medicine man, and members of the tribe came to me daily to be cured of various complaints during the fortnight I stayed with them while the food I wanted was being collected and brought in. When it was all in I found that I had about two hundred loads, and the trouble then was to find porters to carry it out of the country; but by dint of persuasion I finally succeeded in impressing a number of the people into my service, and started off with my loads.
On account of my little difference with Captain Gorges I decided not to go to Naivasha, but to carry my loads down towards the Kedong. As the route to the Kedong Valley led through the Masai country, my men would not go right through with it, so I set them to build a hut on the caravan road, where I established a store for the flour, and within a few days I sold the lot to the railway surveyors and caravans for about thirty rupees a load, which made me highly satisfied with the result of my first venture among the Kikuyu. It was on this journey that I first saw the native method of starting a fire by means of the “fire-stick,” though subsequently I found it very useful on many occasions when, owing to the dampness during the rainy season, my matches would not light satisfactorily. The fire-stick itself is a piece of hard wood, about eighteen inches in length, of the thickness of a lead pencil and pointed, and is carried in the quiver with the arrows. The method of using it differs somewhat from that practised by certain tribes who are accustomed to use a sort of mandril in connexion with it. The Kikuyu always carry, as well as the fire-stick, a piece of wood of a softer kind, about a foot long and two or three inches wide, which, when they wish to make a fire, they place between their feet, holding it in position with their toes. The pointed fire-stick is inserted into a hole in the soft wood and rapidly revolved between the flat of their two hands until the dust worn off the softer wood by the friction begins to glow. This burning dust is then quickly tossed into the middle of a little bundle of dry bark fibre, always carried by the owner of the drill. The little bundle is then taken between the hands and gently blown up until it shows signs of blazing, when it is placed in the middle of a little heap of dried twigs and leaves which has been prepared in readiness. A little careful manipulation soon produces a blaze.
I was also able to purchase a large quantity of trade goods, beads, cloth, &c., from Arab traders going up to Uganda, and sent to Karuri for more natives to carry my purchases back to Kikuyu, where, on my return, I paid them for their services in cloth, which seemed to make them still more anxious for me to remain among them.
Having finally announced my decision to stay in the Kikuyu country, at any rate for a time, I selected a site for a house, and got them to help me with the building. I found that they had a sort of native axe, somewhat similar to those in use in the South Sea Islands, made with a very small head, which is fixed to the club which forms the haft by a spike projecting from the back, which is driven through the haft and projects for two or three inches at the back—and with these and the swords, with which every man is armed, they cut down trees from the forest, and a house in the European style was built for me.
In connexion with these swords I may mention a peculiar custom which illustrates the treacherous nature of these people. They invariably wear the sword on the right side, as when worn in that position it is much easier to make a treacherous attack on an opponent while approaching apparently with the friendly intention of shaking hands!
Their method of tree-cutting was a somewhat dangerous one, as they simply cut into the tree near the ground, without any regard to the direction in which it was likely to fall, so that serious injuries during tree-felling operations were by no means uncommon. The Kikuyu never use nails, but by dint of careful explanation, I was able to get the native blacksmiths to make me a very efficient substitute.[[6]] The natives were very much interested in the building operations, and when the house was finished I used to invite the chief and his headmen to visit me there. The house, which was built in the bungalow style, common to European houses in the tropics, looked very well, and though the windows were, of course, unglazed, I had shutters made, with which I could close them at night.
[6]. I have read that the use of nails was practically unknown in England until the latter half of the eighteenth century.
In the meanwhile I had been getting better acquainted with the country, and found that the people lived in a constant state of civil war. Every day men came to me to have their wounds dressed, and I heard of many being killed. As I have already said, the country was very mountainous, and each hill had its own chief, who lived in a state of continual warfare with his neighbours. No man was safe in travelling about the country, except on certain days when a sort of general market was held, during the continuance of which a truce seemed to exist, hostilities being resumed again as soon as it was over. Karuri used to visit me nearly every day, and from him I learned all about the country. Even he seemed afraid to go far from his own village, and, as this state of affairs was very bad for my plans of trading, I determined to do what I could towards reducing the country to something like order.
I gathered, from conversations with Karuri[Karuri] and the older men of the village, that at one time the country was believed to have been covered with a vast forest, inhabited by a race of pigmies, whom they called Maswatch-wanya. These people did not cultivate the land, but lived by hunting, and the legend said that the wife of a Masai, who was very badly treated by her husband, was in the habit of taking refuge in the forest, with her little boy, from his cruelty. At first she used merely to stay in the forest for a time, and then return to her husband again; but at last his treatment of her became so bad that she left him altogether, and took refuge with the pigmies, and it was believed that the Kikuyu race were the descendants of the offspring of this woman. There is certainly a good deal of evidence to support the tradition, as they undoubtedly have Masai blood, use the same kind of weapons and shield, and in each case worship a god they call Ngai. I have also heard them singing Masai war-songs when going out to fight, and in a very large number of instances the physical resemblance between the two races is very strong.
I stayed some weeks with them this time, and found that there was a good deal of fighting going on, and that many of the friendly natives were being killed through the hostility to me of the neighbouring chiefs and their people. They strongly resented my intrusion into the country, and any of the natives known to be friendly towards me, or wearing any of the cloth I had given them, were immediately marked down for attack.