I Married Adventure
Page 23
Once settled into a routine, we found that our cook, as in every part of the world, was the aristocrat of the servants, and, as such, was paid something like four times as much as the rest. He was an enormous man with a wide grin and strong, white teeth. We thought his name, Joanna, a trifle too feminine, so we called him simply Mpishi, meaning “cook” in Swahili. His costume, over which apparently we had no control, was somewhat startling, consisting as it did of a shirt-like smock, khaki shorts, tattered socks, and a pair of cast-off shoes. On Sundays, however, he was almost splendid in starched white trousers, a mess jacket minus sleeves, and a too-small straw hat perched slantwise atop his head. When he hired himself to us, he said he was a cook—and he was. Mpishi let us know without preliminaries that he had two assistants—one to prepare the vegetables, the other to clean the pans.
Aloni also introduced an assistant, a sort of apprentice room-boy. “This one, Toto,” Aloni announced. Actually, I found out later, toto is the Swahili word for child or infant and can be applied to elephants and rhino babies as well as human beings. In a household such as ours, toto often becomes a substitute as a proper name and designates the youngest member of one’s domestic staff. If there is a youngster in the culinary department, he is invariably “Kitchen Toto.”
Toto was twelve years old and, from what I could make out, was Aloni’s son by another wife. Toto wore a grin of perpetual delight and was spotless in khaki shorts and starched white shirt and cap. Whenever he went to market with me to carry my basket, he tied a jaunty cerise sash around his waist.
Zabenelli, who understood English, was houseman, also acting as butler, messenger, and general utility man. Two gardeners also hired themselves to us, as did a watchman. All were Kikuyus, who still wore animal skins dyed with red clay. The gardeners didn’t know anything about planting and tending anything new, but the soil was fertile and the rains frequent, and soon we had all the free corn, peas, lettuce, tomatoes, and beans that we could eat, while every bowl and vase in the house bulged with fruit and flowers.
In short, keeping house in Nairobi was downright fun, and knowing I would have a chance at it only between safaris, I made the most of it. Almost daily I would go to either the “white market” of the British and Boer farmers, or to the native market where the native and East Indian gardeners sold their produce. There I would buy, for practically nothing, white-skinned potatoes, alligator pears, strawberries, asparagus, and whatever else our own garden lacked. Clean, orderly butcher shops supplied us with wild game as well as with the standard cuts of meat. Father Johnson often accompanied Toto and me on these shopping excursions, and we both developed what amounted to a secret passion for the “white market.” It was just as much fun as a crossword puzzle, and almost as exciting as backgammon, for everything—butter, eggs, flowers, fruit, vegetables, tinware, and furniture—was sold at auction.
Running Father Johnson and me a close second in the matter of getting sheer fun out of our new life was Kalowatt. All the climbing she had ever done—with the exception of her escapade up the chimney with Bessie in London—had been within the narrow limits of our New York apartment, where the chandeliers were the closest substitute she could find for trees. Here we gave her the run of the garden, and she kept carefully within the limits, swinging from tree to tree and gorging on fruit. When stuffed to capacity, she sat on a high branch and performed monkey antics for an always-increasing audience of natives. Given her choice, I think she would have slept in a treetop rather than in her pillowed bed. No amount of coaxing would bring her down, even when it grew dark, until Martin had the idea of getting some of our natives to make a pretense of hitting us with sticks. The effect was magical. Kalowatt, screaming with rage, leaped among them, cuffing, scratching, and biting, and not until she had accomplished a complete rout was she satisfied to be taken into the house, where she then strutted for the greater part of an hour, proud of having rescued us. In this land of so many types of primates, Kalowatt became noted for her intelligence and antics, and we, in turn, became known as “the people with the gibbon ape.”
Martin, it seemed to me, had the least fun of any of us, but as his father pointed out, work and fun were one with him when they combined the things he loved to do. With characteristic directness, he had surveyed the possibilities of our eight-room bungalow and then had a clause added to the lease to the effect that certain drastic alterations could be made, but that on the expiration of our tenancy the house would be restored to its original condition. We had brought with us from New York several fifty-gallon developing tanks and drums on which to dry the film. When these were set up, together with several long, narrow tables, and the windows of the darkroom made lightproof, we had as fine a laboratory as any to be found outside of New York or Hollywood.
The city water presented a problem. Coming as it did from various swampy lakes and rivers, it was muddy and thick with vegetable matter and in that state could not be used for developing. Filtering was a slow and complicated process, so Martin had a tinsmith build wide gutters around the roof of the house to catch the rainwater. These were connected with fifty-gallon tanks which in turn were piped into the darkroom, and even during dry seasons enough water was available in this way to meet all developing needs.
Carl Akeley had written various people letting them know of Martin and his mission in this part of the world, with the result that our house—or, rather, the laboratory—became the gathering place for everyone in Nairobi interested either in photography or in the animals of British East Africa. Major A. Radclyffe Dugmore, the famous explorer and photographer, who made some of the best still pictures ever to come out of Africa, developed hundreds of his photographs in Martin’s laboratory.
Major General Sir Edward Northey, the governor of Kenya Colony, often was a visitor. Intensely alive to the problem of preserving the wildlife of British East Africa, he was most enthusiastic in his approval of our plan to hunt with a camera instead of with a gun, and gave us his unqualified support.
Sir Northrup McMillan, a member of the legislative council, lived just up the street from us. Extremely interested in photography, he spent many hours in the darkroom, and his kindly advice and understanding of our problems did much to smooth our path.
Then there was our good friend Mr. Stanley Taylor of the fingerprint department of the Bureau of Native Affairs. In addition to giving us much useful information about the natives, he solved what had been a major problem for Martin by allowing him to store his negatives in the vault of the department—the only fireproof storage space in Nairobi.
Blayney Percival, of course, occupies a niche all his own in my affectionate regard. Twenty years as game warden in British East Africa had made him an unquestioned authority on the animals of the country. He knew all the various species and their habits and haunts, and he was extremely generous with both his knowledge and his time. He had a brusqueness of manner that at first was a little disconcerting, but this wore off after a little and we saw that it grew out of a downright exasperation with the so-called big-game hunters who came, in increasing numbers, to fatten their egos with trophies, no matter how obtained, and whose lust to kill would in time become a menace to African wildlife.
Blayney came one night carrying a thin, worn book. I had made a cake, which we served with some coffee in the living room. Martin had opened the windows wide, and the garden was fresh and fragrant following a hard tropical shower. Kalowatt chattered excitedly at a large red admiral moth on the screen.
Martin looked tired but happy. That day he had completed plans for our first safari, which, on Blayney’s advice, was to be a more or less experimental one to the shores of the Athi River, just thirty miles from Nairobi and easily accessible by automobile.
“Well, Blayney,” Martin said, “I’ve got my headman finally. About the best to be had, I should say, and the funny thing about it is, he just walked in and, in so many words, said ‘Here I am.’ ”
Bla
yney accepted another piece of cake and smiled enigmatically.
“A big fellow, too,” Martin went on. “Good-natured, but with an air of authority that packs a real wallop.”
“Yes,” I put in, “and he was headman for Colonel Roosevelt a couple of years ago!”
Blayney looked up. “Flat nose, wide mouth?”
“Biggest mouth I ever saw on any man,” Father Johnson said.
“I know.” Blayney nodded. “Jerramani. A good man. Comes from Tanganyika and knows this country as well as I know London.”
Martin laughed suddenly. “Why, you old son of a gun, I’ll lay a bet you sent him to me!”
“It’s important,” Blayney said, “to have the right headman, especially when you’re new to the country. Another thing: When you start on your long trips with a lot of porters, you’ll be glad of a headman the porters will respect.” Then, after a moment’s thought, “You’ll need a second man, and I’d suggest Ferraragi. The only thing is that he’s almost as good as Jerramani—feels himself of equal importance—and there probably will be a bit of rivalry.”
His thoughts seemed divided as he ruffled the thick yellowed pages of the book he was carrying. “Twenty-five dollars a month each is all you should pay,” he said. “Spoils them to pay too much.”
“Thanks for the tip, Blayney,” Martin grinned. “Overpaying is a sort of weakness of mine and—oh, by the way, I haven’t any porters so far. Thought I’d better leave that for the headman.”
Blayney thought a minute. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “on a short trip such as this one, I don’t think you’ll need porters. Just take some of your house servants along.” Then, “You say you have two safari Fords?”
“Yes, Newton Limited here fitted me out. A new one, and a secondhand one on which they put a safari body for my cameras and supplies.”
“Can any of you shoot?” Blayney asked suddenly.
Martin laughed. “Well, Osa did a neat job of killing a cobra when we were in Borneo. Took its head right off.”
“Yes,” I said, “and two minutes after that I missed a wild pig the size of a young cow.”
“Well, this trip to the Athi River will give you a chance to practice up, and I’d suggest you go at it in earnest.”
Martin stared. “But we’re not interested in killing anything, Blayney. I told you that.”
Blayney nodded. “I know, you’re not here to shoot game, but you can’t safely carry that ideal to extremes. There are times when almost any wild animal is dangerous, you know—when hungry, during mating season, or guarding its young, sometimes even when you disturb it in its sleep—and every now and then it will be a question of its life or yours. That’s to be expected.”
Martin nodded, “I see that, of course.”
“Funny thing,” Father Johnson put in thoughtfully. “Martin never was one for killing. Why, when he was a boy, he beat the tar out of another young one his age just for killing a garter snake.” He scratched his head. “And I guess maybe I’m partly to blame for encouraging him to feel that way.”
Blayney Percival nodded. “I know. It’s just that there’s a bit of a problem here that’ll take some figuring out.”
“Well.” Martin hesitated. “I’m not bad at target practice.”
“Not the same thing at all as a moving, living object, and besides, it’s going to be up to you to provide meat for your headman and porters. They’re forbidden by the government to carry guns, you know, with the exception of your picked gun-bearers, and if you can’t provide meat, you’ll have to hire a white man—professional hunter—for the job. Cost you more than all your porters put together.”
“Well—” Martin hesitated. “How much?”
“Around a thousand dollars a month.”
“A what?” I gasped.
“Great Jupiter!” said Father Johnson.
Martin looked more troubled than at any other time.
“Fact is, Blayney,” he said, “we’ve got the expenses of this thing to the bone now.” He smiled a little sickishly. “But if it’s got to be done, that’s that.”
Blayney nodded. “I’m afraid you’ll have to.” He lit a cigarette and took a turn about the room. “Martin,” he said abruptly, “I’m going to take you three into my confidence on something that I’d—” he gave a short laugh. “Well, with the exception of telling Carl Akeley about it, I’d sworn I’d never confide it to another living soul.” He pushed the thin book into Martin’s hands. “It’s all in there,” he said.
I looked at the book over Martin’s shoulder. The paper, as well as being yellow with age, was stained, and the old-fashioned type made it difficult reading.
“You can study it later,” Blayney said. “Point is that the old Scotchman who wrote that book back in the early part of the nineteenth century described a crater lake which is on no map ever made of this country.”
Martin stared at him. “You mean there’s a lake around here nobody knew about?”
“Nobody, and you may be certain I’ve kept my ears open.”
“But you’d think some of the natives would have run across it,” I said.
“It’s probable, but if they have, they’ve guarded the secret just as carefully as I have, and probably for the same reason.”
“A lake,” Martin said with mounting excitement. “Why, animals must go there by the thousands!”
Blayney nodded. “Yes, and probably from hundreds of miles in every direction—a sort of sanctuary, undisturbed by the white man and his gun. That’s why I’m telling you about it, Martin. I’d like to see you go there some day with your camera and come back with a record of what animals are really like in their natural, undisturbed state.”
Father Johnson was now on his feet. “Well, see here,” he said, “where is this place?”
“If it isn’t even on the maps,” I put in doubtfully, “perhaps the Scotchman was sort of romancing.”
Blayney Percival shook his head. “From the description in that book of the surrounding country, he wasn’t romancing, and I believe that, barring the difficulties which the country itself may present, I could go straight to it.”
Martin was beside himself with excitement. “Well, man alive,” he shouted, “let’s go! Why waste time on the Athi River? Why waste time on anything?”
Blayney smiled rarely, but he smiled now. “If you’re wise, old chap,” he said, “you’ll take a lot of experimental trips before you attempt this one. Assuming that my reckoning is approximately correct, the lake is up to the north in an uncharted region near the Abyssinian border, perhaps five hundred miles as the crow flies, and without a doubt the country we’ll have to cross to get to it will be both hard going and dangerous.”
I had picked up the book, and I’m sure my eyes were bulging at what I saw. “Why, it says here that an animal called a camelopard was seen at the lake, and a two-horned unicorn!”
Blayney smiled. “I think that refers to the giraffe and oryx,” he said.
“But I agree with Martin,” I cried excitedly. “We mustn’t waste time—we must go right away!”
“No,” he replied. “A trip with the hazards of this one should only be made following careful preparation.”
“But we don’t mind hazards,” I protested. “We’re used to them. The Solomon Islands, South Seas, Borneo….”
He shook his head. “I’m positive,” he said, “that the lake must be almost inaccessible. Otherwise hunters, natives, someone since this man,” he laid his hand on the book, “would have run across it.” He was thoughtful for a moment, looking at me. “There’s no question in my mind but that it’s going to be a very hard trip, even a hazardous one, as I said before, and I’m inclined to think, Mrs. Johnson, that”—he smiled again—“if I were you, I wouldn’t set my heart on going. It will be no trip for a woman.”
“Oh!” It seemed to me I m
ust explode. “No trip for a woman! That again!”
Chapter 17
“Well, I guess that’s everything,” Martin said anxiously eyeing our heavily loaded safari Fords. This was about a week after our long talk with Blayney Percival, and we were at last ready to leave for our first experimental trip to the Athi River. The cars stood in the driveway outside our bungalow, and every inch of space was piled high.
“No, it isn’t everything,” I replied. “Here’s Kalowatt’s bed.”
“Kalowatt’s bed!” he stormed. “Can’t we go anyplace without Kalowatt? I didn’t come to Africa to be nursemaid to an ape!”
We both were as tired and nervous by this time as if we’d never before gone on a safari.
“All right then, we’ll leave Kalowatt behind,” I said with sly promptness. “And have her run off or be poisoned or stolen or something! That’s a fine idea!”
They both laughed, and Father Johnson settled the whole business by perching our little gray gibbon, together with her bed, on his knees.
I drove one car, Martin the other, and with us we took the two headmen, Jerramani and Ferraragi; our cook, Mpishi; our room-boy, Aloni; and our all-round houseboy, Zabenelli. None of them trusted me as a driver and so they rode with Martin. Father Johnson rode with me.
The roads out of Nairobi were of smooth, hard-packed clay. Within twenty minutes we were in the open plains, and not more than an hour from Nairobi we began to see gazelle, ostrich, and zebra.
“Martin! Martin!” I screamed, as if he could hear me. “Look!”
“Hey, watch out,” Father Johnson shouted. “That critter ran across the road right in front of us—you pretty near took his tail off!”
“But this many animals close to Nairobi—look at them! Why, a little farther out there’s probably everything—we aren’t going to have any trouble at all!” In my excitement I was pushing down on the accelerator. We clattered and roared over the road.