A White King in East Africa / The Remarkable Adventures of John Boyes, Trader and Soldier of Fortune, Who Became King of the Savage Wa-Kikuyu

by John Boyes

WA-KIKUYU WOMEN POUNDING GRAIN FOR MAKING NATIVE DRINK

Returning to my home in the mountains, I settled down at Karuri’s with a prospect of calmer days before me than I had experienced during the previous twelve months, during which I had been getting the country under control, and now I had time to set about improving the country itself, and got the natives to work making better roads and building bridges across the rivers, and generally increasing the facilities for getting about the country. I also made a very large garden close to my camp, in which I planted the seeds which I had bought at Naivasha, and had the satisfaction of finding that almost every English vegetable would grow well in that climate, while the black wattle I had planted also flourished splendidly, and has, I believe, at the present day grown into quite a little forest.

With the opening up of the country by the railway, new difficulties arose. My own success in the country induced many traders, Somali, Arab, and Swahili, to try their fortunes with the natives, and so long as they stuck to legitimate trading, all went well, but they adopted methods which soon created a strong feeling of discontent throughout the country. In many cases these traders, who had very little in the way of trade goods, represented themselves as working for Karanjai—which was the native name by which I was known—and instead of doing any trading, billeted themselves on the natives, making them keep them, and would often even steal the sheep and other belongings of the Kikuyu. The natives repeatedly complained to me of the misbehaviour of these so-called traders, and when I told them that they were not my people, and that I had nothing to do with them, the natives sometimes retaliated on these men who were thus robbing them. Wandering Swahili, and the other rascals of their kind, came complaining to me. I told them that if they could not get on with the natives the best thing for them to do was to leave the country.

Matters went on in this way for some time, incidents of the kind becoming more and more frequent, until the whole country was in a state of unrest, and as I was continually travelling about the country from one chief to another, I was always hearing of them, and on one of these journeys, I had personal proof of the imposition and robbery that was being practised on the natives by these scoundrels. I happened to be in the neighbourhood of Mount Kenia—where it was still necessary to have a fair number of rifles to go about in safety—and two or three of these Somali traders, who had not guns enough to venture alone, had been following me on the journey, about a day’s march behind. It appeared that at the last village at which they had stopped they had driven away about sixty sheep from the native kraal, and had afterwards sat down quietly to trade these sheep off for ivory in my camp. As soon as the case was brought to my notice, I at once ordered them to return the sheep, and told them that the best thing they could do was to get out of the country at once, as they could not count on my assistance if the natives attacked them. It came to my knowledge that they had made their way down to Nairobi and there spread reports about my killing natives and taking their sheep away from them. The officials were practically ignorant of what was going on, and I knew that the reports of men being killed and things of that sort would be believed by them, in all probability—especially as I was a white man and the reports were brought by natives. This meant trouble for me both ways, as unless I got rid of these men they disturbed the peace of the whole country; while if I did so they carried misleading reports to the Government—always ready to believe anything to the disadvantage of a white trader—and so, between the natives, the traders, and the Government, my position was no sinecure.

It was about this time that the smallpox broke out in the country, and for the time being all my other troubles were relegated to the background, in the face of the necessity for adequately dealing with this awful plague. We were having a shauri, when I noticed in the crowd an elderly man, a stranger to that part of the country, and a single glance was sufficient to show me that he was suffering from smallpox. I explained to the natives the significance of my discovery, and told them that if he were allowed to mix with them they would certainly get the smallpox and die. They immediately stood away from him and said that I ought to shoot him, which to their savage mind was the most natural precaution to prevent the disease spreading. I explained to them that such a course was impossible, though in view of the subsequent events, the forfeiture of this man’s life at that time would have meant the saving of thousands of lives which were lost in the epidemic of which he was the cause. I told the natives what they ought to do to avoid the infection, and arranged for an isolation camp to be built in which the man was placed, telling some of the people who lived near by to leave food for him at a respectful distance, so that he could fetch it for himself until he got better, and also instructed them to see that he did not, on any account, leave the camp. Some days later I was travelling through the country when I again saw the man in the crowd, and in great alarm sent some of my own men back to the isolation camp with him. But it was too late. The disease had already spread to others, and I saw a lot of bad cases among the people, and though I tried to get them all into isolation camps, it was practically no use. When an outbreak occurred in a family they would not report it, but continued to live and sleep together in the same hut, with the result that, in most cases, the whole family took the disease and died. I sent into Naivasha for some lymph and started vaccinating the people. They took the matter in the proper light, and raised no objection, so that I was able to vaccinate thousands of them, which must, undoubtedly, have been the means of saving many lives; but in spite of all I could do, thousands died, many whole villages being wiped out.

One rather remarkable thing about this epidemic was that Karuri’s village escaped entirely, not a single case occurring among the inhabitants, which Karuri claimed to be due to certain precautions he took to ward off the evil. He got some sticks and split them down the middle, and then poured some black powder in the opening, afterwards pegging the sticks down across all the footpaths leading to the village. It did not keep people from coming in, and I could not see in what way the sticks could do any good, but Karuri had great faith in their virtues, and as no case of smallpox occurred in the village he took the credit for keeping it away.

Karuri told me that one of the reasons of the respect with which he was regarded by his people was that he possessed a most wonderful poison. If any one even looked at this poison it caused certain death. The secret of this drug, he told me, had been handed down and preserved in his family for two or three generations. The poison itself was kept buried in the bush, one of the tribe being specially told off to guard it and dig up the package when it was required for use; but I could never learn anything about the way in which it was used, and was very much inclined to believe that the whole thing was a legend, of which the old man made use to strengthen his influence among the people. I certainly believe that there was some box or package buried in the bush and carefully guarded, but whether it actually contained poison or anything else I question whether Karuri himself could have told any one. The old man was always very anxious to possess samples of the poisons contained in my medicine-chest, but although I gave him many medicines of various kinds, I always refused to part with any of the poisons, as it is not improbable that he might have taken an opportunity of testing my immunity with some of them.

While on this subject, some account of the native practice of protecting their shambas, or rather the crops growing in them, from thieves may be of interest. Of course this was done by playing on the superstitious fears of the savage, the usual method being to hang some article, such as an old earthenware cooking-pot, an old broken calabash, or best of all, the cast-off earthenware nozzles of smith’s bellows, on a bush or tree near the edge of the cultivated patch, and any one pilfering in face of this warning to trespassers was supposed to fall sick, or even die, as the result of his temerity. A similar practice prevails on the West Coast, where a stick with a piece of cloth tied to it, or inserted in a cleft at the top, may often be seen in the cassava patch; and it is supposed that any one violating the protection which this ju-ju is supposed to afford, will, at the least, suffer the loss of some portion of his body, which will rot away and drop off.

The old saying that “it never rains but it pours” was abundantly verified in our case, only in a contrary sense to the literal meaning of the proverb. The failure of the rains in two successive seasons—which was attributed to the white man having brought the railway into the country—brought about a famine, which still further depleted the population. The country around Karuri’s, being mountainous, was not affected so much as the part to the east of us, on the caravan road, and more towards the coast. At our high elevation, surrounded by the watersheds of Mount Kenia and the Aberdare Range, we could always rely on a fair amount of rain, though we had had much less than usual during these two seasons. The general famine in the country affected me, inasmuch as the food which I was there to buy found its way out on the borders of the country, and consequently my supplies were cut off. Having occasion to go down to Nairobi about this time, I saw hundreds of poor wretches dead or dying on the road, while some of my men heard gruesome tales of men killing and eating each other in their desperation at the lack of food. No case of this kind came under my personal notice, but I have seen the natives sitting down and boiling the skins which they wore as clothing in the effort to soften them sufficiently to enable them to be eaten.