went to examine the " wells." What I saw there
would have been ridiculous if the attendant circum-
stances and the disappointment had not made it
almost tragic : the much-vaunted wells consisted of
two holes about eight or nine feet square by as
many deep, covered over by a roof of grass-thatch in
a state of considerable dilapidation ; but as for water,
I think I may safely say that the bottoms of these
wells were the only thoroughly dry spots in the
whole country within a circumference of ten miles !
The afternoon was extremely oppressive and sultry,
E
50 THE MISSION TO UGANDA
and we were all in the undignified position of being
short of water with wet boots and clothes, and were
also beginning to feel already that we had had
enough walking for one day !
The tail of the caravan did not arrive at Butzuma
till after we had been there a full hour, and the men
had already, in their usual improvident manner,
drunk most if not all of the water contained in the
tin water-bottles which had been served out to them
at the coast. It was thought advisable to make as
much progress as possible before dark, and so, after
allowing a short rest for the rear party, we started
off' again and marched till a little after sunset, i.e.
for about an hour, and then stopped again. Even
after this short spurt the tired rear lost a lot of
ground, and did not appear till nearly an hour and a
half after the leaders. Here we decided to wait till
the moon should rise, and each of the Europeans
contributed a little out of his water -flask into a
common tea-pot, and we had some very refreshing
tea and a biscuit, after which most of us got about
two hours' sleep. At 11 p.m. the moon made her
appearance, the tired men were kicked up somehow,
loads were collected in the dark, in spite of the
efforts of the " shirkers " to lose them, and once more
we toiled along a pretty straight and good piece of
road, which had recently been cleared for nearly ten
miles by the orders of the East Africa Company.
This time we struggled wearily along till 2.30 a.m.,
and then once more laid the seeds of future fever by
lying on the ground for nearly an hour. At 3.15 a.m.
A DESERT MARCH 51
we were off again, limping forward, but now very
slowly and painfully ; all attempts at conversation had
long ceased, and we felt inclined to regard a harmless
remark addressed to any of us in the light of an
insult.
With our minds a blank, our eyes fixed on the
steep sides of Maungu, which in the bright moonlight
now really began to look a little closer, we could do
nothing but feebly hope for the end, and wonder
whether we should ever get in, while the only sounds
were an occasional deep curse in English or Swahili,
as either a booted or a bare foot tripped over a stone
or a root in the dark shadows. From time to time
the ghostly form of some antelope, or the uncanny
outline of a hyaena was seen crossing the path before
us, or, with a hushed rustle of downy wings, some
large night-bird would almost brush our faces, but
the general impression produced by this forest of dry
n thorny scrub was one of deep, solemn, weird silence.
At 4.30 a.m. the straight and newly-cleared path
came to an abrupt end, and now to our other troubles
Jy were added those of sharp thorn branches hanging
right across the road, which tore our faces, knocked
the loads off the porters' heads, and caused additional
loss of temper. At last, at 5 a.m., we arrived at a
>m . small clearing in the bush, and at the same time the
<c first streak of dawn showed us each other's haggard
£3 faces. By mutual consent, and without a word being
>- said, every one here threw himself once more on the
g ground for a little rest. The tail of the caravan
> straggled in within an hour, and at 6 o'clock we
0^
Q
52 THE MISSION TO UGANDA
were off ao-ain for a last effort which should take us
o
right in to Maungu.
By this time I don't suppose there was a pint of
water left in the whole caravan, so that nothing but
harm could be done by further waiting. To increase
our difficulties the path now became the most
circuitous, the most overgrown with thorns, and
generally the most unkempt that it has ever been my
fate to experience even in Africa. Our objective
point, Maungu Mountain, was clearly visible, bearing
W.N.W., but now we found ourselves marching
sometimes due north, sometimes south, and some-
times even in an easterly direction — never seeing
more than ten yards along the path ahead of us,
always dodging under branches, and wrestling with
thorns two and even three inches long, and as sharp
as needles. Nothing, I think, is so tiring, so
thoroughly heart - breaking, as the feeling thus
engendered that, in spite of all one's walking and toil,
one is not really making much progress, and count-
less were the anathemas hurled at the heads of the
East Africa Company's authorities, as we realised
how the expenditure of a few pounds, a few weeks'
work for a few men, at any time during the five
years that they have held their charter of adminis-
tration, might have saved us all this trouble, might
have cleared and straightened the road, and thereby
shortened the whole of this accursed march by at
least five miles. 1
1 I must here state, as Sir G. Portal would himself have done had he
lived to revise these pages, that since this passage was written, a new road
has been constructed by the patriotic enterprise of the late Sir W. Mackinnon,
IN SEARCH OF WATER 53
At last, however, we began to ascend the foot of
Maungu, and hoped our labours were at an end.
Sharply, but in vain, we looked about for any signs
of a watercourse or of a swampy piece of ground.
Steeper and steeper became the path, till we felt that
it only needed this ascent to break our hearts com-
pletely. By this time there was nobody anywhere
near me except a couple of soldiers and a cook bearing
an empty kettle. Higher and higher we climbed,
despair alternating with philosophical resignation,
until at length, at five minutes past 9, we emerged
on an open space where there were evident traces of
former camps. This, I was informed, was our destin-
ation. So far so good, and with a sigh of relief I
sank down on the root of a tree, but where was the
water? The irony of the situation, and the com-
pleteness of the "sell" devised by Nature, struck me
as so successful that the answer only elicited a some-
what husky laugh : the water was at the extreme
summit of the mountain, 1000 feet above the camping-
ground ! After a short discussion the two soldiers
volunteered to go up and bring some water, and off
they went, hung all round like Christmas-trees with
the water-bottles of the men who had as yet arrived,
and taking also the cook's empty kettle. For two
more wearisome hours we had to wait, while a few
more men dropped in, and then a shout of joy
announced the return of the messengers. A very
executed at his sole expense, and continued by the public spirit of his heirs,
which remedies all the defects alluded to, shortens the distance considerably,
and, passing to the east of Maungu, avoids the wearisome ascent now about
to be described. Reference is made to this work in chap. vii. — Ed.
54 THE MISSION TO UGANDA
limited drink was all I could allow to either myself
or the men who had arrived, and then we sent back
more volunteers with water for the tired ones scat-
tered along the road for manv miles. At the same
time a fatigue party of the strongest men was de-
spatched to help their weaker companions and to carry
their loads in for them. For the rest of the morning
haggard and limping men came staggering into camp,
and it was not till nearly 3 o'clock in the afternoon
that the whole caravan had arrived. There were
many cases of exhaustion, and some of rather alarm-
ing prostration that afternoon, but I am happy to be
able to add that not one ended fatally, and that there
was, moreover, not one man unable to continue the
march next day.
On the 9th of January we arrived, very stiff and
tired, at a lovely spot at the foot of the Ndara Hills.
Our camp was pitched in a grassy plain, shaded by
magnificent trees, by the side of a sparkling stream of
pure water which falls in a long silver thread from
the summit of a lofty precipice, dashes proudly through
the plain for a few hundred yards, and then loses itself
suddenly in the thirsty soil. High in the precipitous
mountains were hidden a few small villages of the
Wa-Teita, a peaceful, harmless people, who complained
bitterly of the oppression which they had suffered at
the hands of passing caravans. They were very
short of food, their meagre fields of maize and millet
were parched and bare, and they could sell nothing
to us except a few sugar-canes. In order to give a
much-needed rest to the men, we stayed the whole of
"BUTTON" QUAIL 55
the next day at this pleasant spot, which gave an
opportunity, to such of the officers as were not too
footsore to move, for the production of guns and
rifles of every calibre and every degree of modern
perfection, in the anticipation of finding big game.
The whole country was, however, too parched and
dry ; the game, which is usually reported to be in this
neighbourhood, had evidently moved off to richer
plains nearer the Sabaki river, and but little was seen
by any of our party except a few zebra, two of which
were bagged and brought to camp. The doctor was
also fortunate enough to shoot a somewhat rare and
curious gazelle, with a long, swan-like neck and long
tail, known as Clarke's gazelle (Ammodoreus Clarlzei).
When bounding along, this creature bends its long
neck backward and raises its tail over its back till
they give the impression of a complete arch. I should
add that not only all round our camp, but for miles
in every direction, the plain was simply alive with
small " button " quail. At every other step they
were rising in twos and threes, and it is no exaggera-
tion to say that every acre of grass concealed hundreds
of these excellent little birds. Powder and shot was,
however, far too precious to be wasted on quails of
any sort.
For the next few days we pushed ahead without
any adventure worth recording, crossing the Voi
river, which entails nearly half an hour's walk through
high rushes, water, and deep black mud of the most
repulsive and odoriferous nature, and making gener-
ally rather long and forced marches till we arrived
56 THE MISSION TO UGANDA
at the Tsavo river, where the East Africa Company
had established their first " station " on the road to
Central Africa, 140 miles from the coast. Somewhat
to our disappointment, we found that this post con-
sisted of nothing more than a mud house surrounded
by a rough stockade of logs, in a dismal spot on the
banks of the clear, quick-running Tsavo river, about
twenty yards wide at this point. The Company's
representative in charge of this station and of the sur-
rounding district was a Portuguese half-breed youth
of about seventeen years of age, who was apparently
much depressed by the enforced companionship of a
dozen " irregular" Arab soldiers, natives of the Persian
Gulf and Hadramaut coast, deservedly looked upon
at Zanzibar and alone; the shores of East Africa
as being the veritable scum of the earth.
At Tsavo we found a quantity of Hour and rice
which had been sent up from Mombasa for us a week
previously. From this, ten days' rations, at the rate
of a pound and a half per diem, were dealt out to
each man.
Two days afterwards, at a place named Kinani,
notable chiefly for the thick, green colour and slimy
character of its water, which lies in a marshy pool at
the foot of a great mass of red granite rock, we
obtained our first view of the mighty giant of East
Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro. Late in the afternoon
we had climbed to the top of the rocks and searched
the horizon for the two lofty peaks, 21,000 feet above
the sea-level. Before us opened an apparently endless
vista of bold, rugged mountains piled up one behind
MOUNT KILIMANJARO 57
the other till their outlines were lost in the red mist
of the distance. It was with some disappointment
that we selected the highest of these as bein^ Kili-
manjaro, and strove to make ourselves feel awe-struck
and impressed with the grandeur of this monarch of
a continent. But, as though the insult of this mis-
taken identity were too great to be borne any longer,
suddenly, just as the sun began to touch the broken
line of the horizon, a hitherto imperceptible mist was
rolled aside as a curtain mi^ht be drawn back, and hio-h
above the highest of those ridges towered a gleaming
mass of red-tinted snow and black rock. Frowning
down upon the now humbled mountains around him, as
though to reprove them for daring thus to depreciate
his majesty, the snow-clad tyrant determined to show
himself in his best aspect. Against his gleaming
shoulder the setting sun nestled closer and closer ;
above and on either side dense masses of cloud enclosed
the picture, the bold, irregular outlines of their inward
edges gleaming with scarlet, purple, and gold, until
the snow of the twin peaks caught the reflection and
transformed itself into the richest mantle of brilliant
velvet and satin. Near us not a sound was heard, all
Nature was silent, the tongue of even a Rifle Brigade
subaltern was stilled ; spell-bound we gazed as slowly,
tenderly, an imperceptible veil of mist was drawn
before the face of the glory, gently and unwillingly,
shrouding it as an Eastern Aphrodite dims her beauty
with the transparent yashmak ; darker, heavier grew
the veil, until we gazed, as before, into a confused
sea of gray mist and black peaks in the middle
58 THE MISSION TO UGANDA
distance. Silently, and with a sigh as of relief from
extreme tension, we turned away and wondered, was
it real, this which we had seen ?
After this incident our journey for a few days was
most uninteresting. The road was fairly level, so that
we managed to cover from twelve to fifteen miles every
day, but there was no game, the country alternated
between dense thorny scrub and sparse thorny scrub ;
w T ater was only found in pools at long intervals, and
was either thick, green, strong-smelling, and full of
little animals, or else thick, brown, and full of mud.
After an animated discussion a committee of taste
decided that the latter w T as, on the whole, the best
for culinary and drinking purposes. During these
days we met an officer of the Imperial British East
Africa Company returning from Uganda to the coast.
He drew for our edification a most dismal picture of
the general state of affairs, and of the life led by
Englishmen in Uganda ; but, what was far more
distressing, he also brought new r s of a mutiny of the
Company's troops at Kikuyu, and of the death at
that place of Captain Nelson, who had done such
gallant service and had passed through such terrible
sufferings during Mr. Stanley's expedition for the
relief of Emm Pasha from 1887 to 1889. Apart
from the sincere sorrow caused by the news, it also
gave rise to some anxiety on our own account, as
Kikuyu was the station on which we were relying
for the collection of a sufficient quantity of food to
support the whole caravan of porters and Zanzibar
THE MISSION AT KIBWEZI 59
soldiers across a fooclless tract of some 250 miles
which lay beyond that place.
On the 18th of January we struck into an excellent
and well-kept road, some ten feet wide, along which
the men stepped out bravely. It led us for three or
four miles through a lovely park-like country, over a
clear, murmuring stream, to the station of the Scottish
Industrial Mission at Kibwezi, about 200 miles from
the coast. The road had indeed been cleared some
months before for nearly thirty miles, but all the
rest of it had unfortunately been allowed to become
so overgrown with bushes and long grass that the
track is almost imperceptible. As we approached
this Industrial Mission evidences of its work and
beneficent influence were apparent on every side.
Fields were being cultivated, the natives were at
work, and, standing with confidence to see our
caravan defile, shouted out cheery greetings to the
men. This was a refreshing contrast to the conduct
of the inhabitants of a village only two marches back,
who had fled with every sign of panic at the sight of
a white man, and who, when with difficulty they were
induced to come into the camp, poured out bitter
complaints of the exactions, the ill-treatment, and the
violation of domicile which they had suffered at the
hands of travellers.
At the Kibwezi Mission we were received with
every possible kindness and hospitality, and a pleasant
afternoon was spent in admiring the neatness of the
gardens, the grass - built houses, the well - kept turf
intersected by walks and hedges, and in noting with
60 THE MISSION TO UGANDA
pleasure the trust and good-will shown by the natives
of neighbouring villages. Although this Industrial
Mission had only recently been established in the
country — scarcely a year before — the progress it had
made in the affections of the people, and the general
good it had already effected in the neighbourhood,
were really remarkable. The founders are to be
congratulated on the success of their enterprise,
which bids fair, if well supported, to rival in well-
doing its elder sister, the Lovedale Mission of
Southern Africa.
This establishment affords another proof, if such
were needed, of the wisdom of introducing the true
benefits of civilisation among natives, not in the
time-honoured English fashion with a Bible in one
hand and a bottle of gin or a Tower musket in the
other, but by teaching simple, useful arts, or by
inculcating an improved system of agriculture, the
benefits of which, and the additional comforts thus
acquired, are quickly noticed and appreciated by the
imitative African. The ordinary African, by the way,
is not half such a fool as he looks ; he appreciates as
much as any one the advantages of a warm blanket
on chilly nights, or of an iron hoe to replace his
wooden spud in digging his little field ; and the
man who can teach him how to earn these luxuries
will obtain a proportionate influence over him. But
even in Africa the general laws of supply and demand
are as strong as anywhere else : it is useless to offer
the ordinary tribesman wages to serve as a caravan-
porter or as a coolie in some engineering work. The
CIVILISATION 61
first he connects in his mind with heavy loads, sore
and ulcerous shoulders, long marches, swearing head-
men, and possibly a vision of a gang of poor fellows
fastened together with chains ; the second means to him
continuous work, more brutal headmen, and probably
over all a terrible white man with a long stick, freely
used, and strings of loud oaths in a strange tongue.
After careful consideration, the African comes to the
conclusion that whatever may be the inducements
offered in beads, wire, or even blankets, this sort of
thing is " not quite good enough." He hates regular
hours or anything approaching to discipline, but he
is quite ready to improve his own material comforts,
and even to work with that object in view, if any one
will show him what to do and how to do it ; but as the
very foundation of his nature is suspicion, he must
first have confidence in his teacher.
I have no wish to be led here into an essay on the
means of disseminating civilisation in Africa : the
whole question is a most complicated one and full
of difficulties, and it has already formed the subject
of several thousands of pages from far abler pens
than mine. Theories of the most admirable nature
have been laid down and clearly expounded ; books,
pamphlets, speeches have proved to the world that
the African native is a suffering martyr or that he is
a demon incarnate, and treatment has been recom-
mended accordingly. Africa certainly cannot com-
plain of having received insufficient attention during
the last few years, and yet it must be confessed that
but little progress has been made except in a few
THE MISSION TO UGANDA
isolated instances. It is to be feared that the
shortcoming has been in the practice, the raise en
execution of all the carefully-devised plans for the
improvement of the lot of the negro. It is true that
the long hide whip and chains of the white overseer
are things of the past, and that slave caravans are
now scarce, but it is to be greatly feared that the
breechloader and the repeating rifles of the European
officer and his half-disciplined troops are still emptied
far too often in the cause of civilisation, and that the
fire in which the African now finds himself is not
much more comfortable than his former passive
position in the frying-pan. All the theories, rules
for guidance, and plans which have been evolved
on this subject, are useless if the first principles be
forgotten ; the ordinary African native is a curious
compound of suspicion, superstition, child-like sim-
plicity, and mulish obstinacy : if he knows and
trusts his leader he may be guided gently towards
civilisation, may be made a useful member of society,
and even a Christian, but he will resist with the
whole force of his nature any attempts to kick him
from behind into comfort or into heaven.
CHAPTEE IV
The scene of a Masai raid — Onr first rhinoceros — Arrival at Machakos
— Victualling the caravan — On the war-path — I bag a lion —
The Wa-kamba tribe and warriors — The Wa-Kikuyu.
At Kibwezi Major Owen bad a sharp attack of
gastro- intestinal catarrh, but, fortunately, it was
possible to get him out of his tent and into a
comparatively warm and comfortable house, and as
the next day's march was to be a short one of only
about six miles, he had a long morning's rest, at the
end of which he was sufficiently recovered to be able
to accompany the caravan on one of the invaluable
ponies. Regretfully we turned our backs on the
hospitable mission-house, where we had enjoyed the
luxuries of fresh milk, butter, bread, glasses, clean
tablecloths, and wine, to which w T e had been strangers
since leaving the coast, and unwillingly we felt
compelled to turn a deaf ear to the petitions of the
men, who clamoured for a day's rest on the plea that
they were being worn out by travelling at this
unprecedented pace. As though to confirm the
justice of their dismal forebodings, almost immediately
after crossing the Kibwezi river we entered upon two
or three miles of the worst bit of road which we had
64 THE MISSION TO UGANDA
the misfortune to encounter during the whole journey.
Loose slabs and lumps of lava piled one above the
other, with points like needles and edges like razors,
cut our boots into ribbons, and reduced the already
limping caravan to a sorry plight. Several extinct
craters, visible in a range of hills on our west flank,
showed clearly the origin of this lava, which was
satisfactory from a geological point of view, but of
little consolation to a porter with sixty-five pounds
on his head and with bleeding feet, or to the officer
who sadly watched the dissolution of what was of
more value to him than its weight in gold — his
precious pair of boots.
So far our experience of Africa as a country for
sport, or indeed for anything except rank grass and
stunted thorn bushes, had been most unfavourable.
We had walked over 200 miles, and except for the
very few beasts shot by those who were well enough
to go out at Ndara a fortnight ago, we had not even
seen any four-footed animal larger or more dangerous
than a well -grown field-mouse. The general im-
pression was gaining ground that African shooting
was " a fraud," that big game was a myth, and that
former travellers had been addicted to romance. I
may as well say at once, that long before we reached
the end of our journey we acknowledged that on two
of these points our fears were not justified. On
20th January, two days after leaving Kibwezi, we
entered what really looked like a more promising
country. Over rolling hills and open grass -land
dotted with fine trees, we travelled through an
A COUNTRY FOR GAME 65
immense park. At a mid-day halt for luncheon we
counted over a hundred hartebeest and a dozen
ostriches within a mile of us ; later in the afternoon
we passed two herds of that most beautiful of all
animals, the "Grant's gazelle" (G. Grantii), besides
several little " Kirk's gazelles." On every side were
tracks of giraffe and rhinoceros, but I do not think
that any of our party saw either of these animals.