In spite of the short night and the exhaustion and excitement of the long preceding day, the dawn chorus woke me early next morning. As the first fingers of light steal across the sky, spontaneously every bird on the mountain bursts out singing, and sings its heart out to greet the coming day. Then abruptly it stops, as though too much emotion were bad for birds, and a short deep silence follows. But, like the call to prayer from the mosque, it is the sign for the day to begin, and the early morning noises bring the small township vividly to life.
The anvil bird in the forest starts up for the day with its single pleasing note that never tires. From the village comes the peaceful tutter-tutter of the little “posho” mill where the maize is ground down for rations. The donkeys bray on their way to the well. The crows caw as they wheel hopefully above the plantations. Occasionally there is the wild disturbing cry of a kite high above the forest. The cattle are lowing in the milking enclosures the other side of the little town. From the police lines comes a bugle call, and the sound of the police askaris drilling on the square. Someone in the forest picking up firewood sings to keep the animals away. The breeze stirs the huge papery banana leaves….
There is no high ground between Marsabit and the Indian Ocean, and the low-flying clouds meet nothing before they reach the forest-covered mountain; this keeps the place wonderfully green and full of flowers….
There were little pearl or pale pink gladioli by the thousand and blue butterfly bushes ablaze with flowers and buzzing with contented bees. The hills were carpeted with a small creeping shrub whose pinky-mauve flowers from a distance look like early heather; and jasmine bushes covered with sweetly scented flowers. There was also a waste-paper flower that looks like a piece of crushed white tissue paper but has the spicy scent of clove carnations.
There were flowers even in the forest; some slopes were carpeted with red fuzzy lilies and along the watercourses the yellow bauhinia grew, all the more beautiful for the vast numbers of butterflies and dragonflies which flickered and hovered over it. There were ferns everywhere, and sometimes one had the good fortune to find a cascade of perfect little orchids with an exquisite scent. There was also a very common tree in the forest that had flowers like lilies-of-the-valley, and had the same perfume. When the flowers began to fall they formed a thick creamy carpet and every step one took released more perfume. And besides all these flowers there were ridges which were white with mushrooms.
To My Wife–Fifty Camels Alys Reece.
Lakes
Africa’s largest lake, Victoria Nyanza, is trisected by the boundaries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Sighted by John Hanning Speke in 1858, twenty-five years later Joseph Thomson reached its shores.
Half an hour sufficed to bring us to the top of a low range of hills, and there lay the end of our pilgrimage – a glistening bay of the great Lake surrounded by low shores and shut in to the south by several islands, the whole softly veiled and rendered weirdly indistinct by a dense haze. The view, with arid-looking euphorbia-clad slopes shading gently down to the muddy beach, could not be called picturesque, though it was certainly pleasing. This scene was in striking contrast of all the views of African lakes it had yet been my privilege to see. In all previous cases I had looked down from heights of not less than 7,000 feet into yawning abysses some thousands of feet below; but here I stood on an insignificant hill and saw it gradually subsiding to the level of the great sheet of water.
We had no patience, however, to stand and take in all the details of the scene, we were too eager to be on the actual shores. An hour’s feverish tramp, almost breaking into a run, served to bring us to the edge of Lake Victoria Nyanza, and soon we were joyously drinking deep draughts of its waters, while the men ran in knee-deep, firing their guns and splashing about like madmen, apparently more delighted at the sight of the Lake than I was – though doubtless the adage held good here, as in so many cases, that still waters run deep.
When my escort had thus effervesced to some extent they gathered round, and the good fellows, knowing that my dearest wish had been attained, shook hands with me with such genuine heartiness and good-will that they brought tears to my eyes….
Next day I rested from my labours with the delicious consciousness that a great feat had been accomplished and that I had home as the new beacon-star ahead to direct my wandering footsteps. Next day, finding ourselves among a very pleasant people, we laid aside our natural reserve, and, pocketing our high dignity, we set all the young people of the village to trip it. In the cool of the evening Martin and I illustrated the “poetry of motion” as practised in Malta and Scotland; that is to say, Martin tried to initiate the damsels into the mysterious charm of the waltz, while I showed them how to do the “fantastic” in the spirited movements of a Scotch dance. Need I say that Martin was simply nowhere, while they became enthusiastic over my performance.
Through Masai Land Joseph Thomson.
Birds of calm sit brooding on the wave.
John Milton
The open waters of the lagoons were covered with water-lilies, bearing purple or sometimes pink flowers. Across the broad lily-pads ran the curious “lily trotters,” or jacanas – richly-coloured birds, with toes so long and slender that the lily-pads support them without sinking. They were not shy, and their varied colouring – a bright chestnut being the most conspicuous hue – and singular habits made them very conspicuous. There was a wealth of bird life in the lagoons. Small gulls, somewhat like our black-headed gull, but with their hoods grey, flew screaming around us. Black and white kingfishers, tiny red-billed kingfishers, with colours so brilliant that they flashed like jewels in the sun, and brilliant green bee-eaters, with chestnut breasts, perched among the reeds. Spur-winged plover clamoured as they circled overhead, near the edges of the water. Little rails and red-legged water-hens threaded the edges of the papyrus, and grebes dived in the open water. A giant heron, the Goliath, flew up at our approach; and there were many smaller herons and egrets, white or parti-coloured. There were small, dark cormorants, and larger ones with white throats; and African ruddy ducks, and teal and big yellow-billed ducks, somewhat like mallards. Among the many kinds of ducks was one which made a whistling noise with its wings as it flew. Most plentiful of all were the coots, much resembling our common bald-pate coot, but with a pair of horns or papillœ at the hinder end of the bare frontal space.
African Game Trails Theodore Roosevelt.
Lake Turkana is notorious for sudden, savage storms which make sailing on its waters extremely dangerous. In the 1930s George Adamson, future game warden and lover of lions but then a penniless prospector for gold, made an unorthodox crossing with two companions.
I was dozing off when Nevil suddenly remarked: “Instead of walking two hundred miles around the end of the lake, what about going across it?” I thought, “Poor Nevil, at last the hardships have proved too much for him, he has gone off his head”; indeed, I felt quite alarmed. Go across the lake – in what? But after Nevil had explained his idea in detail and knowing that he had been an amateur boat builder, I became infected by his enthusiasm. We talked far into the night, discussing ways and means of building a boat. Two days later we reached the narrowest point of the lake where we judged the distance across to be only about twelve miles. Indeed the opposite shore looked absurdly close and through our glasses we could even see small bushes growing on sandbanks.
The camp we chose for building the boat was at the mouth of a large sandy river-bed called the Serr el Tommia. This means the River of the Elephants. Here there was a certain amount of acacia timber but it was impossible to find a straight piece of wood, so we had to take small pieces and bind them together with a thong; fortunately there was shade under which to work. Meanwhile, after patching them up, I sewed a couple of canvas ground sheets together with the stout thread we used for repairing pack saddles – I was the sewing expert and Nevil the designer of the hull of the boat. Then came the most difficult task: binding the sticks together into the semblance of a bo
at frame. We used strips of raw hide for this purpose.
At last, on the 9th of June, the hull was ready. We made oars from acacia poles bound to boards taken from donkey boxes. A mast was stepped and a sail fashioned from our canvas bed-rolls. Nevil even contrived a most ingenious rudder and lee-board out of pieces of donkey boxes. All we now had to do was to wait for a favourable wind, launch the boat, set the sail and loll back in comfort while being wafted gently across the lake. How we pitied our staff and donkeys having to trudge through the heat and across the lava….
That evening we foolishly left the boat on the beach, loaded down with stones to prevent it from blowing away, and retired to our camp under the acacias. Next morning we found it a wreck; jackals had eaten all the thongs binding the frame. At first we were very depressed; the outlook was bleak indeed, since we now had no transport, and also no food. But the way the thing had happened was so funny that in the end we roared with laughter. We set-to and rebuilt the boat, using the inner bark of acacia trees for binding. This entailed considerable labour as all the suitable bark trees were over a mile inland and, besides this, since we had sent off our remaining provisions of dried meat with the foot party, we had to look for food which was not easy to find, for at this point of the lake game was scarce and fish almost non-existent. Fortunately, along the river bed there were thickets of mswaki or toothbrush scrub (Salvadora persica), which carried bunches of fruit, not unlike the English blackcurrant in appearance and flavour, but with a tang of nasturtium. However, mswaki berries alone were not sufficient to keep us going, and we had to spend a great deal of time foraging for more solid fare.
On one occasion I came on a goose sitting on its nest up in a thorny acacia tree. If I fired from below, undoubtedly I should hit it, but at the same time smash any eggs it might be sitting on; painfully and cautiously I climbed another thorny tree a few yards away until I was on the same level as the goose. Very carefully I took aim and blew its head off. That night we had three lovely fresh eggs and a tender goose. Next day Nevil returned to camp beaming – he had collected a dozen goose eggs. We told Yusuf to boil the lot and sat down in happy anticipation at having four eggs apiece. Unfortunately they were in a rather advanced state of development, but beggars can’t be choosers, so we ate the lot.
When at last we once again had a boat, violent gales were blowing from the south and there could be no question of our sailing across. We built our hopes on the fact that at noon the wind usually dropped and a few hours later there was flat calm which lasted until about nine or ten pm. We decided therefore to row across during the period of calm, hoping we could make the opposite shore before the gale got up again. As the sun set about six thirty pm we should have to make part of the crossing in the dark. We had no option.
At three pm, ten days after the donkeys had left, we launched the boat and set off. Nevil and I rowed like mad and Yusuf bailed with an old cooking pot. As we progressed he was kept increasingly busy. By dark we judged ourselves to be half-way across. As there was no moon it was not possible to see the western shore but we could faintly discern the outline of the Loriu Hills which gave us a guide. Rowing doggedly, our hands raw and bleeding from the chafing of the rough wood of the oars, we had lost count of time when, suddenly, I heard a distant sound. We stopped rowing and listened, thinking it was the wind and meant the end of our chances. Then I recognized the noise as the croaking of multitudes of frogs. This meant that we must be near land. We redoubled our efforts and half an hour later hit the western shore. In the darkness it was impossible to tell where we had landed; all we knew was that it was on a pebbly beach.
My thoughtful mother had again provided a half-bottle of brandy with her usual instruction as to conditions in which we might open it. Nevil agreed with me that the appropriate emergency had arisen, so we shared it between us, pitying poor Yusuf who, being a devout follower of the Prophet, could not join in. Half an hour after we had landed the gale started, and blew like fury for the remainder of the night and till late into the morning. Had it caught us out at sea the boat could not have lived for more than a few minutes.
Bwana Game George Adamson.
Beside Lake Turkana.
My father-in-law spent many years walking in the country around Lake Turkana. One day he was visited in his tent by an old man. His face was grand with age and wrinkles, and he wore nothing but his leather apron and beads. His eyes were wise with the years and intensely human. Alfred and he talked many hours into the late evening in a halting version of his language which Alfred had picked up. The sun began to drop like a golden ball into the surface of the green water. The night wind began to blow, taking with it gusts of sand across the desert. The two men grew silent. Then the old Turkana summed up their thoughts. “You and I” he said, “are like two cows, one black and one white, but we belong to the same herd.” The truth of this statement rings down the years and is precious in its expression of human meeting and response.
Different Drums Michael Wood.
The tragedy of Africa.
Africa has been described as “miles and miles of bloody Africa,” and the emptiness of great tracts of land is oppressive. Great plains of scorched grass and thorn, a grey emptiness during the day, turning to a burnt sienna in the evening. The great hills and volcanoes lie athwart the plains like monsters in profound sleep, their flanks scarred by the erosion of countless centuries, and in contrast, the high forested hills have withstood the weathering but are now threatened by another enemy – the growing population who now survive famine, disease, and premature death as a result of modern medicine. It is a triumph of Western civilization, but it will be the tragedy of Africa. The hypodermic syringe is man’s worst enemy, more deadly than bombs, for a man can live without the former, but civilizations will pass by reason of famine. The African worships the “sindano,” or needle, as more potent than any medicine or charms, and such is the power of mind over matter that an injection of distilled water is preferred to no injection, because the cure lies in the charm of the needle and not in the contents of the syringe.
Dimbilil: The Story of an African Farm Errol Whittall.
The Capital
1899
A sergeant once set up a tent
And pitched a capital.
John Roberts
Nairobi in the month of May 1899, the month and year in which we moved camp to this place, may be described thus: A bleak, swampy stretch of soggy landscape, wind-swept, devoid of human habitation of any sort, the resort of thousands of wild animals of every species. The only evidence of the occasional presence of human kind was the old caravan track skirting the bog-like plain.
The Genesis of Kenya Colony R. O. Preston.
The first man to camp on the site was said to be Sergeant Ellis of the Royal Engineers.
1902
But Nairobi was changing. The administrations of both Whitehouse (chief railway engineer) and Ainsworth (assistant commissioner) had converged upon it, bringing some five or six thousand men. Buildings, tents and shanties were rising on the soft lands around the swamp. The Masai kraals had been shifted from north of the river down to the Ngong…. The station was finished, and a road west of it to the Nairobi River. The road was named (predictably) Victoria Street and was the main Nairobi thoroughfare. Near to the station Wood’s Hotel was rising. There were many familiar names. Boustead and Ridley had come from Mombasa to build a European Club (always a priority); George Stewart & Co. had a circle of warehouses; and a German named Huebner was building a trade-post for Lansing & Co. Below the bridge Alidina Visram had formed the nucleus of a bazaar. There was a half-built soda-water factory under the name of Jeevanjee (that astute Indian who had already made a fortune from railroad contracts). The place was unstill. It vibrated with noise and a febrile air of urgency.
Across the river John and Ina Ainsworth had built their house. It was a low white bungalow and the ground around it was fenced and planned for the flowers and vegetables they would grow. It was named Daraja. Be
low them Nairobi was naked of trees. But they planned to clothe it. This was to be a capital. It needed the dignity of avenues, the shade of leaves. The important roads were already dug for the planting of eucalyptus trees, the holes which would take the roots spaced so that a bullock-team might turn. Even the swamp would be drained, the papyrus cut and the soil turned for the seeds of vegetables.
The town was vividly described by a missionary from the Sagala Mission Station: “… The shacks, or landies as they are called, lean into each other to join and shut out the light. It is a labyrinthine place in which people and rats live together in a common squalor. The ground squelches under the feet like the crust over a morass and one treads with care around great piles of garbage and open gutters transporting night-soil to one or other of the big open cesspools. Here, they say, one can cut one’s finger and it will fester within an hour.
“The town has already divided into sections. The Indian commercial district and the bazaar sprawls over several acres and adjacent to it is the market for produce, vegetables and meat. The filth is incredible. Garbage rots in uncleared heaps. Rats abound. Meat and other edibles hang within inches of human ordure and all of it stinks in the tropical sun. The market area gives way to the Dhobi Quarter, a gloomy alley of brown men and women all scrubbing feverishly at a variety of clothes and fabrics and where the stenches of pollution are joined by the smells of sour steam and yellow soap. One crosses the stepping-stones of the Nairobi River to official residences and newly-cut roads leading to the Military Barracks. Here, all is good order and cleanliness but, again, it is evidently thought proper that sewage should run along open cement channels and into a river from which most of the population draws its water.”
Nine Faces Of Kenya Page 31