The trouble being thus settled, I got my ivory through to headquarters, being met on the road by Karuri, bringing a force to my assistance, my messengers having acquainted him with the state of affairs. From this time on I had complete control of the country; everything that had been stolen from the Goanese was given up, while their murderers had received such punishment as they were not likely to forget in a generation.
When matters had quieted down again, and I had time to review the situation, I took the first opportunity of sending messengers through to the Government, with a full report of the recent occurrences; while I also communicated with the relatives of the murdered Goanese, two brothers who, I heard, were living at Nairobi, sending through to them the whole of the stolen property which I had recovered. I found out later that, through some misunderstanding or other, the heads of the murdered men—which had been found after the fighting was over—had likewise been sent in to Nairobi; which, while serving as proof to the officials that the reports I had been sending in from time to time as to the character of the natives were not without foundation, was a most regrettable occurrence, and must, I fear, have given much pain to the relatives.
The fighting being now over, and the Chinga people—such as remained of them—having given assurances of their desire and intention to live at peace with their neighbours, the country now settled down into a condition of quietness such as had never been known before. My mission through the country had served to produce a spirit of friendship between the different clans and tribes which effectually put an end to the petty quarrelling and constant fighting which had hitherto gone on; and from this time I was looked upon as practically the king of the country, all matters in dispute being referred to my judgment, and I was constantly being called upon to give counsel and advice upon every conceivable subject which affected the welfare of the people. The three most powerful chiefs in the country—Karuri, Karkerrie, and Wagombi—acknowledged me as their leader, and chiefs and people were now entirely under my control. As proof of the altered condition of the country, I could now send messengers to any one of the chiefs or headmen without any fear of their being attacked or molested on the way.
The reader will remember that I have several times mentioned an individual who was known as the chief rain-maker, a man who was by no means well disposed towards me, on account of the fact that my influence in the country greatly weakened his position. He went out of his way, on every possible occasion, to cause me as much trouble and annoyance as he could; while, in connexion with this Chinga trouble, I found that my suspicions as to his having had a large share in the matter were perfectly correct. In fact, he had engineered the whole business, both with regard to the murder of the Goanese traders and the subsequent attack on my safari, the former being really a sort of preliminary to the latter, intended to convince the natives that it was quite possible, as well as profitable, to attack and murder a white man, as he carefully explained to the people that the Goanese were white men, and of the same kind as myself. This attempt having failed, like all his other efforts to remove me, he was not content to accept defeat and let the matter rest, but continued to scheme for my removal until his persistence was the ultimate cause of his own death, which occurred in the following manner.
Some time after the Chinga business, reports were brought in to my headquarters at Karuri’s of serious tribal fighting and raiding in a district some twenty miles to the east of Karuri’s, and after a council of the principal men had been held, it was decided that a force should be sent to reduce the offenders to order. Consequently I set out with Karuri, and about a thousand warriors, for the scene of the disturbance. Soon after we had passed the boundary of the disturbed district, which lay partly in the chief rain-maker’s territory—for he was a tribal chief, as well as the principal rain-maker—he came out to meet us, with every sign of friendliness, and said that he had brought some of his people to help us to put matters right. Being fully occupied with the matter in hand, and quite ready to welcome any friendly advances from my old enemy, I met him in the same spirit, and told him to let his following of some three hundred warriors fall in with the rest of the expedition, and we continued our march. All went well until we reached the first of the offending villages, where we met with strong opposition, and had to advance our force in extended order to attack the enemy. The order to advance had just been given, and the force were crossing the brow of the hill which stood between them and the enemy, Karuri and myself, together with some of the principal headmen, following them more leisurely up the hill, when I suddenly heard a shot fired immediately behind me, and, turning round, saw the chief rain-maker lying on the ground, while one of the four askaris who formed my personal escort was just reloading his rifle. On my asking what had happened, I was told by Karuri and the askari that the chief rain-maker had posted an ambush of men with poisoned arrows in the bush near, and was just signalling them to shoot me down from behind, when my escort caught him in the act and fired. Going over to where he lay, I found that nothing could be done for him, as the heavy Snider bullet had gone through his sword—which these people wear rather high up on the right side—and entered his body just above the hip, so that the case was hopeless from the first, as he himself recognized. When I spoke to him he made no complaint about his fate, but begged that five blankets which I had given him at various times might be brought, and that he might be wrapped up in them and buried, instead of being thrown into the bush for the hyenas to eat, as was the usual Kikuyu custom. Having received my assurance that his last wish should be carried out, he died, without saying anything further. Although the man had undoubtedly brought his fate on himself by his treachery, I very much regretted his death, as I thought we were getting on better terms, and he was one of the finest specimens of the intelligent savage—physically as well as mentally—that I have known. Had he been content to run straight and work with me for the good of his people, he would have been able to do a great deal for them.
But we had little time to spare for regrets, for although his death took a great deal of the heart out of his people who had been set to ambush us, they still attempted to carry out his plan to wipe us all out, and as our followers were by this time well over the brow of the hill, we had as much as we could do to hold our own. I managed, however, to get a couple of messengers through the warriors surrounding us, to summon some of our men back to our help. On the arrival of reinforcements, those of the rain-maker’s people who were not prepared to give up their weapons and surrender cleared off as rapidly as possible.
Strangely enough, in the course of the same day’s operations I was able to do my old friend Karuri a good turn by saving the life of his eldest son, a boy of about eighteen, named Cachukia, who had only recently attained to warrior rank, and was out on his first expedition. We were returning from the reduction of a village where we had met with considerable resistance, and lost rather heavily, when I noticed that Cachukia was not with us, and on inquiring what had become of him, I was told that he had been killed in the final assault on the village. Not wishing to take any chance of the boy having been simply badly wounded and left to bleed to death, I took a few men with me and made my way back to the scene of the fight, where I found the unfortunate youngster still living, but very seriously hurt, having two bad spear wounds in the chest, both of which had penetrated the lung. Although the case seemed pretty hopeless, I could not leave him there to bleed to death, so getting the men to make a stretcher with a blanket and a couple of young saplings, I had him carried back to his father’s place, where he gradually recovered, and to-day he is as strong and healthy a man as any in the tribe, of which he should be the chief on his father’s death.
It may be worth while mentioning that the man who shot the chief rain-maker was so overwhelmed with what he had done, and the possible consequences to himself if he remained anywhere in the neighbourhood of the late lamented’s district, or even where his people could easily get at him, that he cleared out of that part of the country altogether, and no one knew where he had gone. I met him some years afterwards on the road in the neighbourhood of Naivasha, when he recalled the incident to my memory, telling me that he had never ventured to go back to his own district.
Soon after my return to headquarters I organized a big safari to take the food and ivory I had collected down to Naivasha, and on this journey I took about a thousand loads of food into the Government station, which they were very pleased to get. I was told that I could take in as much food as I could possibly collect, as some of the flour was required for the other Government stations up-country, where their supply of food had fallen off locally.
During my absence an Indian store had been opened in Naivasha, and having sold my food and ivory, I was able to buy everything that I required for trading at this store, and among the other things I purchased to take back with me were a lot of seeds, including some of the black wattle.