As we partook of the meat, for which I had little relish, the announcement was made that the great Mzungu, who had come to their country with a good Message, and the chief Watiti were now brothers. If the one ever approached the other with murderous intent he was to fall in his own blood; and that if the people of the one attempted to kill those of the other they themselves would not live to see another sunrise.
In the Heart of Savagedom Rachel Stuart Watt.
Divine intervention.
Upon reaching the station of Machakos, we found John Ainsworth pluckily struggling to establish his influence over the Kamba tribe, with little outside support. During our halt here, we were visited by a curious character named S—— W——, who posed as a missionary and a settler, and came with a tale of woe, begging for provisions to stave off starvation from a wife and children, an appeal which it was impossible to resist. I never heard that he did much missionary work, but he founded a valuable fruit farm which in time proved lucrative. His was a type which appealed to few, for he claimed to be the special charge of the Deity, and told with great gusto the story of how one day when out on the plains he suddenly found himself charged by an infuriated rhinoceros. He ran; the rhino gained on him, and he thought all was lost, but No! Suddenly a voice came out of Heaven, and the Lord said to him, “Throw down your hat.” He obeyed the mandate, and lo! and behold the rhino stopped, then charged the hat and went off with it impaled on its horn.
Kenya: From Chartered Company to Crown Colony C. W. Hobley.
The Uganda Railway killed off, metaphorically speaking, the foot porter, and reduced the journey from the coast to Nairobi from six weeks or more to less than twenty-four hours. The rail trip became a social event. Captain C. H. Stigand conducts his readers up-country, circa 1908.
The train vibrates a good deal, and if you look at the lines you will see that they are wavy, a condition, I believe, caused by the great expansion of the metal under the tropical sun. Therefore reading is tiring, so if you are a card player, take a pack of cards with you with which to beguile the time.
Take also a few bottles of soda and a little whisky; even if you do not need them yourself you will find yourself popular with fellow travellers who have not been equally provident. Failing this, take a corkscrew, as someone is sure to have a bottle and no corkscrew; lending yours will establish a claim on his hospitality. Also take some light provisions, as if you play bridge that night you may feel hungry after a rather early dinner.
If you elect to make your own tea or cocoa in the morning, hot water may be obtained in two ways. In both cases the preliminaries are the same, that is, you take a teapot or kettle, and when the train stops, proceed to the engine and stand near the waste pipe or whatever the end of a pipe projecting on the near side is called. From this point onwards the two methods differ: The first is to make yourself very agreeable to the driver, and then inadvertently show him the teapot. The second method is, concealing the pot from his view, to make remarks calculated to raise his anger. If you do either of these things sufficiently well, the driver will probably find that he can dispense with a little steam and water, and turn on some handle inside the machine.
If you intend to crane your head much out of the window to look at the game, a pair of goggles are useful to keep the dust and also the sparks from the wood fuel out of your eyes. Do not forget to take a pillow or bolster to use at night, and if you are a man of luxury, a few cushions and bolsters or bundles of rugs to rest the elbows and back against are comfortable during the day.
If you intend making up a bridge four, two camp stools and a camp table or drawing-board should be taken, and then people can sit in normal positions. Otherwise two players must sit side by side, leaning away from each other, saying in duet, “Hold up your hand, please.”
But I have given away enough lucrative tips for one chapter, and the train is just starting, so we say goodbye to Mombasa and steam off, pass Kilindini, and then wind slowly on to the magnificent bridge connecting Mombasa Island with the mainland. From here there is a splendid view of the harbour and creeks running up into the mainland.
A few miles out of Mombasa the observant traveller will notice some of the abominable tall elephant grass which makes travelling so hideous in most central parts of this continent.
So on past Mazeras, and the country becomes more open and less populated till Maji ya Chumvi is reached, and now we begin to enter the waterless tract. Presently we will come into the red earth and thorn of the Taru, the thorn scattered at first, but growing thicker and thicker as Voi is reached.
At this place we adjourn to the Dak bungalow for dinner.
If the complaint book of this place is referred to, it will be found that the quality of this dinner is one of the burning questions of the moment in the Protectorate, and one on which people are fanatically divided. It would appear as if many a true friendship must be broken at Voi, husband and wife parted, or father must disown son over this controversy.
Read the ecstatic remarks written in the book by this one. “Never has he eaten such a dinner out of Europe, and but once has he been better served, whilst dining in the city. The chef is a true artist, etc., etc.”
And now this one, a member of the same party. “Excepting of course the food served on German liners, never has he tasted such filth, etc., etc.” …
The railway is divided into sections, at each of which there is a change of guards, drivers, etc. Voi was the first landmark in the journey; Makindu, the next, will be reached in the early hours of the morning. It is just after this station that lions are constantly met with, and even run down by the train, just before dawn, as they use this part of the line as a road to and from their hunting grounds and lying-up places.
When dawn breaks we should be at about Simba station, already the highlands, but here clothed with sparse and stunted acacia, which will presently give place to open plain.
From here on to Nairobi, the distance of 100 miles, the line will traverse the great Kapiti and Athi plains. During practically the whole of this distance, game is never out of sight, and large herds may generally be seen in all directions, paying little heed to the train, being too busy grazing.
Some even allow it to pass within 150 yards of them, merely looking up curiously and then resuming grazing. Were the train, however, to stop, they would at once take the precaution to move a little further off.
The Land of Zinj C. H. Stigand.
In those days there was a certain casual atmosphere about the railway which disappeared for ever after the war. The railway was a social institution as well as a method of transport. A train would nearly always stop to allow a passenger to get out and photograph giraffe or to watch a herd of elephant striding across the plain. Sometimes an English but Mohammedan settler who lived down the line from Nairobi would spread a little feast of fruit, cakes, honey and milk on the bare veld by the side of the line where it ran past his farm. Any train which came past used to stop while the passengers alighted and were served with this strange gratuitous meal by the settler in his fez.
It was not surprising that a more carefree attitude towards tickets than is usually displayed by railways prevailed. Passengers often bought their tickets at the other end of the journey. (One man reached England on a second-class ticket from Nakuru to Elmenteita, but this was an unusual and something of a classic achievement.)
On one occasion Delamere arrived at Elmenteita station with his bull-terrier bitch and a litter of four puppies which he was taking to Nairobi. In the preoccupation of getting them comfortably settled he forgot to take tickets either for himself or for the dogs. When the train had gone the station-master telegraphed a warning to Nairobi in these terms: “The Lord is on the train with one bitch and four sons of bitches. No tickets. Please collect.”
White Man’s Country (Vol. I) Elspeth Huxley.
The log-burning puffers of the old Uganda Railway gave way to powerful diesel-burning locomotives; basic meals in wayside dak bungalows to succulent
dinners in the restaurant cars of the East African Railways and Harbours, which came into being in 1948 with the amalgamation of the Kenyan and Tanganyikan systems.
I drove down to Nairobi and caught the overnight train to Mombasa, jostling with the crowds that thronged the single platform of the Nairobi railway station in vibrant confusion. Turbaned and bearded Sikhs; elegant, sari-clad Indian women; African families carrying bulging cloth-wrapped bundles on their heads; bright-eyed, jet-black children struggling with gaping, string-tied cardboard suitcases; back-packing overlanders and the laughing, effervescent groups of teenage Settler children.
There was something of a carnival atmosphere about all these departures, everyone leaning out of the carriage windows – each with the names of the occupants neatly typed on a rectangle of card – and shaking the upraised hands of those who had come to see them off. Then, with a triumphant, if asthmatic, toot on the steam whistle and a bumper-joggling lurch, we chugged out from the station amidst much clapping and shouted farewells, the deep chuff-chuff cadenza of the engine running away before settling down to a steady beat, the clackety-clack of the carriages echoing over the track. I was already beginning to relax.
As we pulled through the shanties on Nairobi’s outskirts, groups of children waved excitedly from the banks as we passed by … This was the sad, flip-side face of Africa. A jungle of cardboard igloos and beaten petrol-can huts, home to those drawn to the city in the hope of work.
They were unlovely and unloved wastelands, looked over by a few dusty, barren trees – bare like gallows – and garlanded with the garbage of the twentieth century; discarded milk cartons, bits of string, plastic bags, and ragged strips of faded cotton cloth. Then, as we chugged away into the Athi plains, we left behind the sour, pig-slop smells of the Shanties’ open drains, and exchanged them for the fresh cowpat, hay and pollen smells of summer meadows; the unmistakable, all pervasive musk of the African savannas.
Later, as darkness fell, a porter lugged a bulky, canvas-covered bedroll into my cabin and took orders for early morning tea and coffee. Shortly afterwards, the first of the dinner relays was heralded by a one-man glockenspiel band. Dressed in an immaculate white uniform, the beaming waiter swayed down the rocking corridor hammering out a catchy jungle beat. I made my way to the dining car and was shown to an elegantly side-lit table draped with a crisp linen cloth and neatly laid with a full set of gleaming and monogrammed silver; EAR & H – East African Railways and Harbours. The logo was even embroidered on the linen napkins. My order was taken and in no time at all the multi-course feast was being served by smiling waiters wearing white tunics and red fez hats who seemed to take genuine pride and pleasure in serving me, removing the lids of the great silver tureens with a magician’s flourish, decanting fine vintage wine and generally pandering to my every whim.
Afterwards, I climbed into my snug bunk and fell asleep to the lulling, four-beat clatter of the carriage wheels; the steam and the smoke and the dull-red sparks streaming past the window. Every so often throughout the night, I was woken by the jerky clanging of bumpers as the carriages concertinaed to a halt at one or other of the small, en route stations and our engine driver took additional water on board.
Come the dawn, I was roused by the “tap-tap” and cheery “Jambo, Bwana!” which signalled the arrival of a tray of piping hot coffee and then, after a full English breakfast, I gazed out of the window at the coconut palms, heavily-laden mango trees and clustered banana groves, drinking in the warm, sultry air as the long train snaked down the hills towards Mombasa and the coast.
Shortly before nine o’clock, we pulled into Mombasa station and I hailed a highly individual, bougainvillaea-festooned taxi to take me to my hotel.
Black Moon, Fade Sea Ian Meredith Hughes.
Following the break-up of the East African Community in 1977, the logo of the East African Railways & Harbours was painted out on the rolling stock, and the logo of Kenya Railways painted in.
“Transportation is civilization” Kipling wrote; civilization, it was generally believed, would follow the twin steel rails that superseded Africa’s own system of winding footpaths and plodding feet. The railway was a spine: from it spread out dust-shrouded or mud-boggled tracks traversed by ox-drawn wagons making ten or twelve miles a day. The wagon had its own mystique.
They were delicious, those mornings, once the agony of dressing in the icy dark was past. There is a freshness about dawn in Africa that is very invigorating. Everything is clear and sparkling and joyous; the fragrant, downy, white leaves of leleshwa shrubs shining against a deep blue sky. Our oxen swish slowly through the dew-laden grass, their supple hides glossy in the sunlight. Cries and laughter from the camp, the clinking of trek-chains, and pleasant pungence of wood smoke combine to put new life into one’s soul.
We met with minor vicissitudes, naturally. Once the wagon upset, and we were eight hours without food. Once we sat up for a lion, only to find next morning that it had quietly visited a Dutchman’s team of oxen – outspanned defenceless – half a mile farther along the road. On another occasion we ran out of bread, and riding to a farm close by to beg for a loaf, had the discomfiture of seeing our loose mule fly at one of the settler’s large black pigs and gallop – with her teeth fixed firmly in the squealing victim’s tail – half-way up to the house. Again, when near our destination, the mules got away during the night and went home ahead of us, on their own account.
But it was all great fun. The journey took six or seven days, for we were able to follow the shorter route by Thomson’s Falls and the Pesi, which saved twenty miles. The falls themselves were a delight and wonder to the newcomers; so close to the highroad and so totally unexpected, as if the river disappeared into space twenty yards below the bridge. But the safari itself was what they appreciated most. I enjoyed sitting on the wagon among the bulky bundles and baggage as much as any of it. There is something so solemn and fateful about a wagon’s progress, when one is merely a passenger, and the hoarse shouts and ceaseless activity of the drivers only seem to accentuate this sense of detachment. Seen from one’s lazy perch above, rocking and heaving, the long team of oxen undulates onward like some monstrous centipede.
“Ouch! Sh-Sh-Sh – SH-SH-SH!” the drivers cry, swinging their whips with a report like a pistol-shot. They spring from side to side of the dissel-boom at awkward places, and admonish each ox in turn. One learns to know the characters of them all – lazy, willing, nervous, or placid – as one watches from aloft.
Perhaps a stream has to be crossed, and then, for a perilous moment, one seems to topple on the very verge, when, with a downward plunge, the wagon lurches safely into the water.
Most enthralling by far, however, is night, when, gathered round the campfires, one sees the near trees and tent-flies lit up like frosted silver against the purple mystery beyond. Can anything be lovelier than dancing firelight, with its ruddy glow and flickering shadows? Within earshot of one’s deep-breathing oxen, tied in line to their yokes, and in sight of the phantom outlines of mules and ponies, stamping uneasily at their pickets, a glamour lies over safari life not easily to be forgotten.
A Kenyan Farm Diary V. M. Carnegie.
After the wagon came the motor car, at first the “box body” loaded up with spades, axes and chains, with spare springs and gaskets, with cans of petrol and water, with iron rations, first aid kits, dogs and guns and other equipment needed to cope with anything from a flooded river to a charging rhino. Lorries lurched across lava deserts, along rutted forest tracks and up and down precipitous hills. Sometimes distressing incidents occurred.
In 1925 there was very heavy rain, and one day no less than seven cars were stuck on an extremely bad patch of mud. Admiral Blunt volunteered to try and find a diversion and so took off into the bundu [bush]. After waiting for some time we thought we had better go and find out what had happened, but no trace of the Admiral, his wife or his car was to be seen. It eventually transpired that they had all disappeared into a newly formed do
nga [gully] and the bush had closed over the car, leaving no sign.
On another occasion the Admiral, travelling with his wife from Solai to Nakuru in his box-body Model T Ford, hit a pothole with such impact that not only did his good lady hit the roof, but her head went straight through it. The plywood then, as plywood will, closed round her neck and nothing that the Admiral could do would release her. As the vehicle was also stuck in the mud, there was nothing for it but to walk to Nakuru for help. As the Admiral trudged on it began to rain. The road surface became muddier and muddier. By the time he reached Nakuru he was exhausted, soaked, and covered in mud. His friends rallied round him. A little drink would do him a power of good. Two little drinks … Several hours later someone asked the Admiral how his missus was. It was the first time he had given the poor woman a thought.
Pioneers’ Scrapbook, eds. Elspeth Huxley and Arnold Curtis.
This journey from Marsabit to Isiolo took place in 1935.
The lorry had only one light, which kept flickering on and off. An abundance of old rope kept the mudguards more or less in the right position. All the springs in the cab seat reared nakedly out of the rents in the leather cloth covering and I was thankful for the cushions Racha put in for me at the last moment….
Mr Fernandes climbed into the driving seat. He was perhaps the leading trader in Marsabit, and was something of a local landmark. I had travelled with him before and enjoyed it; he was an interesting companion because he knew so much of the local history and was full of unexpected bits of information. He knew every inch of the road by heart….
Nine Faces Of Kenya Page 10