XVI.
RECRUITING.
To the traveller Nairobi is most interesting as the point from which expeditions start and to which they return. Doubtless an extended stay in the country would show him that problems of administration and possibilities of development could be even more absorbing; but such things are very sketchy to him at first.
As a usual thing, when he wants porters he picks them out from the throng hanging around the big outfitters' establishments. Each man is then given a blanket—cotton, but of a most satisfying red—a tin water bottle, a short stout cord, and a navy blue jersey. After that ceremony he is yours.
But on the occasion of one three months' journey into comparatively unknown country we ran up against difficulties. Some two weeks before our contemplated start two or three cases of bubonic plague had been discovered in the bazaar, and as a consequence Nairobi was quarantined. This meant that a rope had been stretched around the infected area, that the shops had been closed, and that no native could—officially—leave Nairobi. The latter provision affected us; for under it we should be unable to get our bearers out.
As a matter of fact, the whole performance—unofficially—was a farce. Natives conversed affably at arm's length across the ropes; hundreds sneaked in and out of town at will; and from the rear of the infected area I personally saw beds, chests, household goods, blankets, and clothes passed to friends outside the ropes. When this latter condition was reported, in my presence, to the medical officers, they replied that this was a matter for police cognizance! But the brave outward show of ropes, disinfectants, gorgeous sentries—in front—and official inspection went solemnly on. Great, even in Africa, is the god of red tape.
Our only possible plan, in the circumstances, was to recruit the men outside the town, to camp them somewhere, march them across country to a way station, and there embark them. Our goods and safari stores we could then ship out to them by train.
Accordingly we rode on bicycles out to the Swahili village.
This is, as I have said, composed of large "beehive" houses thatched conically with straw. The roofs extend to form verandas beneath which sit indolent damsels, their hair divided in innumerable tiny parts running fore and aft like the stripes on a water melon; their figured 'Mericani garments draped gracefully. As befitted the women of plutocrats, they wore much jewellery, some of it set in their noses. Most of them did all of nothing, but some sat half buried in narrow strips of bright-coloured tissue paper. These they were pasting together like rolls of tape, the coloured edges of the paper forming concentric patterns on the resultant discs—an infinite labour. The discs, when completed, were for insertion in the lobes of the ears.
When we arrived the irregular "streets" of the village were nearly empty, save for a few elegant youths, in long kanzuas, or robes of cinnamon colour and spotless white, on their heads fezzes or turbans, in their hands slender rattan canes. They were very busy talking to each other, and of course did not notice the idle beauties beneath the verandas.