Things were done in a different way here, and I quickly realized the change when I got outside the office and found myself surrounded by a guard of six Indian soldiers with fixed bayonets.
That same day I was taken by the afternoon train to Mombasa, under charge of the escort of Indian soldiers, with a white officer in command, and on arriving there I was handed over to another white official. After some considerable delay, the papers apparently not being in order in some respect, I was duly admitted to the Mombasa jail, which was the old Portuguese fort—a massive building, whose frowning walls rise sheer above the cliff commanding the entrance to Mombasa. Many a time, in days gone by, has the tide of battle rolled around these grim walls, the many sanguinary conflicts in which it has figured having earned for Mombasa the title of the “Isle of War.” Looked at from the outside, the fort is a gloomy-looking place, with its huge entrance gates guarded by sentries; but its extent is best judged from the inside, and I found that there was plenty of room within its massive walls; while the apartment allotted to my use proved to be much more comfortable than I had expected—being, in fact, quite on a par with, if it did not surpass, the accommodation which the only hotel in Mombasa at that time could provide. I found that I was perfectly free to roam about the fort at will, though, of course, I was not allowed to pass outside the gates.
I had been incarcerated in the fort for some weeks before any of my friends got to know of my arrest, and then one of them, Mr. Claude Smith, also a trader and hunter, like myself, hearing of my position, came down to Mombasa to see me. After having paid me a visit, he got the only lawyer in the country, who was a Parsee, to conduct my defence; while a few days later these two managed to secure my release, on a bail of 10,000 rupees, and I left the fort and went up to Nairobi.
The bare statement that Claude Smith came down to Mombasa to see me, and secured my release on 10,000 rupees bail, will probably not convey the idea to the general reader that he did anything calling for special notice. But, when the facts of the case are taken into consideration, it will be seen that the comradeship which existed among us early pioneers in that wild, official-ridden territory, was of a kind which does not usually flourish among the stay-at-home, arm-chair critics who, from the comfort of the club fireside or the smug atmosphere of the Exeter Hall platform, condemn the traders and settlers as irredeemable blackguards or, as one complacent official described them to a gathering of uneducated natives, as _washenzi Uliya_, the translation of which is “the savages of Europe.” In the first place, although I had no claim on him whatever, he came down some four hundred miles from Naivasha, where he was hunting, leaving his expedition for the purpose, and found the 10,000 rupees bail—which had to be actually deposited—from his own pocket, and remained with me until the case was dismissed—thus sacrificing many weeks of valuable time in my interests. Further than all this, he incurred the bitter enmity of the official who had instigated the whole business against me, and who never rested until he had fabricated a similar charge against my friend, needless to say with the result of triumphal acquittal for both of us.