Railhead at Kisumu.
But Elmenteita was all holiday. Lord Delamere met us at the station with Cape carts, ponies, and hog-spears, and we drove off in search of pig over an enormous plain thickly peopled with antelope and gazelle. I cannot pretend to the experience of both countries necessary to compare the merits of pig-sticking in India and in East Africa in respect of the fighting qualities of the animal, nor the ground over which he is pursued. But I should think the most accomplished member of the Meerut Tent Club would admit that the courage and ferocity of the African wart-hog, and the extreme roughness of the country, heaped as it is with boulders and pitted with deep ant-bear holes concealed by high grass, make pig-sticking in East Africa a sport which would well deserve his serious and appreciative attention. At present it is in its infancy, and very few even of the officers of the King's African Rifles can boast the proficiency of the Indian expert. But everything in East Africa is at its first page; and besides, the wart-hog is, at present at any rate, regarded as dangerous vermin who does incredible damage to native plantations, and whose destruction—by any method, even the most difficult—is useful as well as exciting.
Our first pig was a fine fellow, who galloped off with his tail straight up in the air and his tusks gleaming mischievously, and afforded a run of nearly three miles before he was killed. The risk of the sport consists in this—that the pig cannot be overtaken and effectively speared except by a horse absolutely at full gallop. The ground is so trappy that one hardly cares to take one's eyes off it for a moment. Yet during at least a hundred yards at a time the whole attention of the rider must be riveted on the pig, within a few yards of whom he is riding, and who may be expected to charge at any second. A fall at such a climax is necessarily very dangerous, as the wart-hog would certainly attack the unhorsed cavalier; yet no one can avoid the chance. I do not know whether Anglo-India will shudder, but I should certainly recommend the intending hunter in East Africa to strap a revolver on his thigh in case of accidents. "You do not want it often," as the American observed; "but when you do, you want it badly."
We passed a jolly morning riding after these brutes and shooting a few Gazella Granti and Gazella Thomsoni, or "Grants" and "Tommies" as they are familiarly called, and in looking for eland in the intervals. At the end of Lake Elmenteita, a beautiful sheet of water, unhappily brackish, a feast had been prepared, to which a number of gentlemen from Lord Delamere's estates and the surrounding farms had been bidden. A long array of flocks and herds was marshalled on both sides of the track in due order, native-bred, half-bred, three-quarter-bred, pure. Through these insignia of patriarchal wealth, which would have excited the keenest interest in any traveller less hungry and more instructed in such matters than I, we made our way to an excellent luncheon, which, be sure, was not unaccompanied by the usual discussion on East African politics.
It was late in the afternoon when we started back to the train, which lay eight miles off in a siding. On the way we fell in with a most fierce and monstrous pig, who led us a nice dance through bush and grass and boulder. As he emerged into a patch of comparatively smooth, open ground I made up my mind to spear him, urged my pony to her top speed, and was just considering how best to do the deed when, without the slightest provocation, or, at any rate, before he had been even pricked, the pig turned sharp round and sprang at me, as if he were a leopard. Luckily, my spear got in the way, and with a solid jar, which made my arm stiff for a week, drove deep into his head and neck before it broke, so that he was glad to sheer off with eighteen inches of it sticking in him, and after a dash at my companion he took refuge in a deep hole, from which no inducements or insults could draw him.
Later we rode and killed another pig and chased a fourth unsuccessfully, and it was nearly dark before the railway was reached. As I was getting into my carriage they calmly told me that six lions had walked across the line a quarter of a mile away and a quarter of an hour before. A settler who had been to lunch at Elmenteita was loading a hastily-borrowed revolver before starting on his homeward ride to Nakuru, and as I gave him some cartridges, I reflected that, whatever may be the shortcomings of East Africa, the absence of an interesting and varied fauna is certainly not among them.
Next day our train is climbing through dense and beautiful forests to the summit of the Mau Escarpment. Admiration of the wealth and splendour of the leafy kingdom is mingled with something very like awe at its aggressive fertility. The great trees overhang the line. The creepers trail down the cuttings, robing the red soil with cloaks of flowers and foliage. The embankments are already covered. Every clearing is densely overgrown with sinuous plants. But for the ceaseless care with which the whole line is scraped and weeded it would soon become impassable. As it is, the long fingers of the encroaching forest are everywhere stretching out enviously towards the bright metals. Neglect the Uganda Railway for a year, and it would take an expedition to discover where it had run.
At Nyoro station nearly nine hundred natives were at work cutting timber for the railway, which is entirely dependent on wood fuel. The contractor in charge, a young English gentleman, who was described to me as being a model employer of native labour in Government contracts, had taken the trouble to cut a path through the forest across a loop of the line in order that I might see what it was like inside. Through this leafy tunnel, about a mile and a half long, we all accordingly dived. There was nothing sinister in the aspect of this forest, for all its density and confusion. The great giants towered up magnificently to a hundred and fifty feet. Then came the ordinary forest trees, much more thickly clustered. Below this again was a layer of scrub and bushes; and under, around, and among the whole flowed a vast sea of convolvulus-looking creeper. Through all this four-fold veil the sunlight struggled down every twenty yards or so in gleaming chequers of green and gold.
On the way the method of fuel-cutting is explained. So far as the labourer is concerned, it is an elaborate system of piece-work, very accurately and fairly adjusted, and, as is so often the case where the white employer takes personal care of his men, there appeared to be no difficulty in finding any number of natives. But they are a plaguey company. Few will stay for more than a month or two, however satisfied they may be with their work and its rewards; and just as they begin to get skilful, off they go to their villages to cultivate their gardens and their families, promising to come back another year, or after the harvest, or at some other remote and indefinite date. And meanwhile the railway must have its fuel every day and day after day, with the remorseless monotony of the industrial machine.