Nine Faces Of Kenya

by Elspeth Huxley

  Party after party, each from its own district, arrived and received this tribute, and my spirits sank as I saw load after load disappear. How could we ever hope to travel many days further, if such was to be our fate? Then the El-morūū (or married men) had to receive their share, which was much smaller and more peacefully divided. Finally the important Lybons (medicine-men), Lengobè, Mbaratien, and Lambarsacout, had also to be attended to individually.

  Towards evening the camp was crowded, and in response to repeated cries for the white Lybon, backed up by insolent attempts to tear open the door of my tent, I had to step out and bow my acknowledgments, though inwardly muttering maledictions upon them, as I was still weak, ill, and irritable from the repeated attacks of fever, the effects of which still hung about me. Submitting to the inevitable, I sat down on a box, the cynosure of every eye. They had now lost their calm and dignified bearing, and had become rude and obtrusive; the Ditto (young unmarried women) being the most insolent, and not showing the slightest trace of fear.

  For some time I endured with patience their annoying attentions, let them touch me on the face, feel my hair, push up the sleeve of my coat, and examine with intense curiosity my boots. At last, however, growing bilious and irritable, especially at the repeated attempts of one ferocious-looking warrior to turn up my trousers to see the natural integument below, I gave him a push with my foot. With fury blazing in his face, and presenting the most diabolical aspect, he sprang back a few steps, drew his simè, and was about to launch himself upon me. I slipped aside, however, and was speedily surrounded by the guard, while some of the El-morūū laid hold of him, and, as he would not be pacified, led him away.

  Matters were further enlivened by a Masai picking up an axe in the centre of the camp, and clearing off with it. This caused a dangerous rush, which, being misunderstood, made my men seize their guns. A very slight accident would have caused bloodshed and a general fight at this moment, but I contrived to yell out to them in time not to fire; and so ended the events of the day, the summing up of which did not increase my cheerfulness, though I was of too sanguine a temperament to despair.

  Through Masai Land Joseph Thomson.

  On the last day of 1883 Thomson was severely gored by a wounded buffalo. He was carried on a stretcher to a bleak camp at an altitude of nearly 9,000 feet above Kijabe, where he nearly succumbed to dysentery and bouts of delirium lasting six weeks. He was rescued by a friendly Swahili trader, gradually recovered in Ukambani, and on 25 May 1884, less than fifteen months after he set out, reached his starting point after a journey of nearly 3,000 miles during which, in the words of the Dictionary of National Biography, he had “passed through the midst of the most ferocious of African tribes when their hostility to the white man was at fever heat without firing a shot in self-defence or leaving anywhere a needless grave”. Thomson led three more African expeditions before he died, aged thirty-seven, in 1895.

  In 1884 a well-to-do young Yorkshireman, Frederick Jackson, arrived in Lamu on a shooting and collecting expedition. Five years later he joined the service of the newly formed Imperial British East Africa Company and, proceeding inland with a large caravan, saw for himself the devastation caused by slavers in the Lake Victoria basin.

  We had traversed the habitable part of Ketosh (in West Kenya) on the third day. Numerous ruined, burned and abandoned villages bore testimony to the handiwork and treachery of the Mombasa slaver, Abdulla bin Hamid, and that prince of rogues, fat Sudi of Pangani. The gateways of every inhabited village we passed were strongly barricaded, and the heads of the few natives, as they peeped out at us over the walls, and small columns of smoke were the only evidence of their being occupied; inside them all was silence….

  It would appear that for many years past Ketosh had been the happy hunting-ground of the Swahili and Arab traders, particularly on those occasions when they arrived from Karamojo, via Baringo, after an unsuccessful quest for ivory and with plenty of trade goods on hand; or when the easy acquisition of a batch of slaves was too tempting to forego on their leaving Mumia’s on their way coastwards. In either case their tactics were the same. Knowing full well that the various sections or clans were at loggerheads with one another, and it being their policy to widen any breach between them and prevent any form of cohesion, it was easy enough for experts in unctuous flattery and pretended friendship to hoodwink and lull such simple, naturally confiding and friendly savages into a sense of security and readiness to believe anything.

  Having arrived at a village, and after accepting the proffered hospitality of a portion of it, the black-hearted ruffians would in due course announce that they required a large stock of food for their coastward journey, and that they were prepared to pay double the market price in order to obtain it quickly. That ruse, of course, attracted women and children from far and wide.

  In the meantime, as a further blind, it was necessary for them to move camp outside the village and make a boma in order to collect the porters and prevent them from stowing themselves away on the day of their departure. When that tragic day arrived, the women and children were seized and any man who offered resistance was shot.

  Early Days in East Africa Frederick Jackson.

  Old Kitale.

  On reaching Quitale [Kitale] I was delighted to find the remains of the double stockade which encircled the slave market, an area of about 4 acres on a slight rise, with open ground for about 200 yards on all sides and a glorious view of Mount Elgon to the west and of the Cherangani hills to the east. Old Mbarak became quite excited when he found himself back in his old haunts and took me round the stockade, explaining what went on in every corner of the camp. The main gate was on the south of the stockade, the latter being made of solid wooden uprights woven together with thorn and smaller branches. Much of it had decayed or had been burned, but several reaches were in almost perfect condition. Mbarak showed me where the Arabs slept, near the entrance, where the girls were kept, where the boys were kept and where they were castrated, and where the men were kept constantly shackled in eights to a heavy log by iron chains. I shuddered to think of the cruelty which must have gone on here; young children raped, boys castrated and left to recover without antiseptics, and the men bundled down to the coast under cruel conditions and simply shot if exhausted…. (I again visited this place, now Kitale, in 1956; so far as I can recollect, the present club is on the site of the old slave mart, but all traces of it have disappeared)….

  Old Mbarak came round to my house this evening after supper. I gave him a sheep, for which he was most grateful. I tried to get more information from him about the Quitale slave market. I tried to find out how the slaves were taken to the coast, their casualties and the route taken, but he remembered very little. The only definite statements he made were that the castrated boys were the best looked after as they were the most valuable, but that over fifty per cent died before reaching the coast; the girls were not shackled but went free and were raped at night and all through the day whenever the caravan halted. About ten per cent of the men died from fatigue and under-nourishment; if a man showed fatigue he was shot and left….

  I asked him if he enjoyed it all. He said: “Plenty food, plenty women; very lovely!”

  Kenya Diary 1902–1906 Richard Meinertzhagen.

  At the end of 1886 a wealthy Hungarian nobleman, Count Samuel Teleki von Szek, together with Lieutenant Ludwig von Höhnel, fitted out a large caravan to explore a distant region where a large lake was rumoured to exist. They took an iron boat to launch upon its waters, 285 porters, 9 askaris, 9 guides and a monkey called Hamis. Setting forth from Pangani in January 1887, they passed with little trouble through Maasailand, but when they reached Kikuyu country were attacked by an estimated 2,000 warriors armed with bows and arrows. The Kikuyu refused to sell them any food, and when they reached Njemps (on Lake Baringo) they found that crops had failed and the people were starving. After “terrible privations” and deaths among the porters they reached their goal.

  All
of a sudden, as we were climbing a gentle slope, such a grand, beautiful, and far-stretching scene was spread out before us, that at first we felt we must be under some delusion and were disposed to think the whole thing a mere phantasmagoria. As we got higher up, a single peak gradually rose before us, the gentle contours rising symmetrically from every side, resolving themselves into one broad pyramidal mountain, which we knew at once to be a volcano. A moment before we had been gazing into empty space, and now here was a mighty mountain mass looming up before us, on the summit of which we almost involuntarily looked for snow. This was, however, only the result of an optical delusion caused by the suddenness with which the mountain had come in sight, and from the fact that the land sank rapidly on either side of it whilst we were gazing up at it from a considerable height. On the east of the mountain the land was uniformly flat, a golden plain lit up by sunshine, whilst on the east the base of the volcano seemed to rise up out of a bottomless depth, a void which was altogether a mystery to us. We hurried as fast as we could to the top of our ridge, the scene gradually developing itself as we advanced, until an entirely new world was spread out before our astonished eyes. The void down in the depths beneath became filled as if by magic with picturesque mountains and rugged slopes, with a medley of ravines and valleys, which appeared to be closing up from every side to form a fitting frame for the dark-blue gleaming surface of the lake stretching away beyond as far as the eye could reach.

  For a long time we gazed in speechless delight, spell-bound by the beauty of the scene before us, whilst our men, equally silent, stared into the distance for a few minutes, to break presently into shouts of astonishment at the sight of the glittering expanse of the great lake which melted on the horizon into the blue of the sky. At that moment all our dangers, all our fatigues were forgotten in the joy of finding our exploring expedition crowned with success at last. Full of enthusiasm and gratefully remembering the gracious interest taken in our plans from the first by his Royal and Imperial Highness, Prince Rudolf of Austria, Count Teleki named the sheet of water, set like a pearl of great price in the wonderful landscape beneath us, Lake Rudolf….

  “Into what a desert had we been betrayed!”

  The next day we resumed our march to the lake. Leader and men were alike in capital spirits, as was fitting on a fête day, for a fête day 6 March 1888 must certainly be for us. With a cheery “Haya puani!” (“Off to the beach”) Count Teleki had chased his staff that morning: and with the eager shout from a hundred voices, “Haya puani”, we should all certainly have rushed to the lake then and there, if the character of the country through which we had to pass had not been so bad. The mountain district between us and the lake was, in fact, a veritable hell, consisting of a series of parallel heights, running from north to south, which we had to cut across in a north-westerly direction. The slopes of these mountains were steep precipices, most of them quite insurmountable, and those that were not were strewn with blackish-brown blocks of rock or of loose sharp-edged scoriae. The narrow valleys were encumbered with stones or debris, or with deep loose sand in which our feet sunk, making progress difficult. And when the sun rose higher, its rays were reflected from the smooth brownish-black surface of the rock, causing an almost intolerable glare, whilst a burning wind from the south whirled the sand in our faces, and almost blew the loads off the heads of the men.

  Almost at our last gasp, we hastened on towards the slightly rippled sheet of water – the one bit of brightness in a gloomy scene. Another hour of tramping through sand or over stony flats, and we were at the shore of the lake. Although utterly exhausted, after the seven hours’ march in the intense and parching heat, we felt our spirits rise once more as we stood upon the beach at last, and saw the beautiful water, clear as crystal, stretching away before us. The men rushed down shouting, to plunge into the lake: but soon returned in bitter disappointment: the water was brackish!

  This fresh defeat of all our expectations was like a revelation to us: and like some threatening spectre rose up before our minds the full significance of the utterly barren, dreary nature of the lake district. Into what a desert had we been betrayed! A few scattered tufts of fine stiff grass rising up in melancholy fashion near the shore, from the wide stretches of sand, were the only bits of green, the only signs of life of any kind. Here and there, some partly in the water, some on the beach, rose up isolated skeleton trees, stretching up their bare sun-bleached branches to the pitiless sky. No living creature shared the gloomy solitude with us: and far as our glass could reach there was nothing to be seen but desert – desert everywhere. To all this was added the scorching heat, and the ceaseless buffeting of the sand-laden wind, against which we were powerless to protect ourselves upon the beach, which offered not a scrap of shelter, whilst the pitching of the tents in the loose sand was quite impossible.

  We now realized to the full that the lake districts were uninhabited, and terrible forebodings assailed us of days of hunger and thirst, when we remembered that the same conditions were pretty sure to prevail till we reached Reshiat. We had provisions for ten days only: and when we subjected Lembasso [the guide] to a searching cross-examination as to how we could improve our position, and how long it would take us to get to this Reshiat, his unchanging reply was fifteen days. He also said that Mount Kulall was inhabited, but that the people there were themselves suffering from famine, and that the wretched Elmolo, living by the lake, supported themselves entirely by fishing.

  Fishing! We had never thought of that: and immediately lines and rods of every size and variety were got out and distributed to the men. But hour after hour passed by, and nothing was caught.

  Throughout this terrible day one trouble, one disappointment succeeded another, until at last the sun went down, when our position became a little more tolerable. The parching heat was replaced by a tepid coolness: the wind blew less strongly, and finally sunk altogether, whilst the sand-storms ceased. A bath in the clear lake refreshed us, and later we actually managed to quench our burning thirst with its water. From the first it had struck us that this water had a quite peculiar lye-like taste. We concluded that it contained soda, which proved correct, for when we poured tartaric acid into some of it, it effervesced strongly. This improved the taste considerably, and it quenched our thirst more quickly than fresh water would have done.

  Sunset was succeeded by a beautiful night: the canopy of heaven was spread out clear and bright above our heads, gleaming with twinkling stars, and the veil of night hid the dreary surroundings from our sight. Our men began to pick up heart again, and sat chatting or cooking round their fires, whilst we discussed the chances of the future with Jumbe Kimemeta and Lembasso.

  The Discovery of Lakes Rudolf and Stefanie (Vol. II) Ludwig von Höhnel.

  The expedition’s privations on the outward journey were as nothing compared with those on the way back. Many of the porters perished, and everyone was starving half-way to death until Teleki authorized a raid to seize livestock which the Pokot had refused to sell. The corpulent Teleki shed ninety-seven pounds. Frederick Jackson, who camped next to him at Taveta, gave this unflattering picture of the Count.

  He had lost much weight on the march up, something between four and five stone, and had shrunk visibly. He always wore his shirt open to its fullest extent, and he thereby exposed a large fold of loose skin across his chest. Amongst other little fads, he always kept his head shaved, and wore a white kofia (hat). He never wore a coat, even at dinner, only a shirt with sleeves folded well above the elbow, and he always smoked a long-stemmed, long-bowled German pipe. From what I saw of him, and subsequently heard of him, he was always calm and collected.

  He was certainly very amusing and outspoken, and good company generally. Some of his ideas were quaint, if not actually jarring, others were quite brutal; two examples of the former occur to me. During his stay at Taveta, he rarely went out shooting, as he knew that most of the game near by was fairly wild, and a long crawl was not at all to his liking; furthermore, he w
as assured of as much as he wanted later on. One day, on his return with two or three heads, I congratulated him, whereupon he remarked, “Ah, I do not consider it good. I shall not be satisfied until I get my ten pieces a day”! On another occasion we were dining together and discussing the well-known African travellers, when the subject of some of their misleading statements and exaggerations cropped up, and I ventured to remark, “Well, Count, I hope when you write your book, you will stick to facts,” to which he replied, “My dear Mr Jackson, all African travellers are liars; my old friend Burton was a liar, Speke and Grant were liars, Stanley is a liar, we know our friends Thomson and Johnston are liars, and” (with a slight bow, and patting his bare, brick-red chest) “I am going to be a liar. If I do not discover a lake, I shall say I did; if I do not discover a mountain I shall say I did; and who will disprove it, until long after I have received the credit?”

  One example of his brutal ideas will suffice, as it would appear to account for many of his actions. On his return after he had discovered both a lake and a mountain, we met at Mombasa on board ship, he on his way to Zanzibar, I on arrival, on appointment to the IBEA Company; and he gave me a short but graphic account of his journey, including the shooting of 35 elephants and 300 ‘niggers.’ When he came to the end of that part where he lost so many of his men from starvation, he said: “It was very bad. You know I do not like the black man, I regard him as one big monkey, but when I did see my men dying on the road, sometimes three or four, sometimes six in a day, then I did begin to pity them”!