I gave the authorities a full report on the country, telling them of the continual fighting and the trouble I had had right through. They said that they were quite aware of it, and that I could expect nothing else, but that they could give me no assistance, as they had quite enough troubles of their own, with the natives near at hand.
It appeared that during my absence from the Kikuyu country my old partner Gibbons had returned from Uganda and gone into partnership with a man named Findlay to make a trading expedition to the Kikuyu country; but I had somehow missed him while transacting my business in Naivasha, as his route had lain farther to the east. I found that as soon as the two had entered the country they had had trouble with the natives, and some of their men had been killed. They had taken with them forty or fifty men, armed with rifles, and about one hundred porters, intending to trade for ivory. So far as I could gather, a chief had come to them and told them that he had a tusk to sell. When the Kikuyu come to sell ivory they do not show you the tusk but give you the measurement, from which you have to guess the weight; then, after the bargain is struck, you pay for the ivory, and the seller is supposed to bring it in. Gibbons bought a tusk, and sent ten armed men back with the chief to bring it in. These men were Swahili, who were terribly afraid of the Kikuyu. They had received the ivory, and were bringing it back to camp, when they were all ambushed and murdered. The rest of the safari lost heart at the murder of their companions and had scarcely courage to defend themselves, and Gibbons saw that his only chance was to build a boma, as the natives were coming in force to attack him. They had barely completed the boma when they were attacked, and throughout the night the improvised fort was surrounded by a yelling horde of savages, bombarding them with spears and arrows and trying by every means to get through the defences. Gibbons and Findlay kept up a plucky defence, and by spurring on their men managed to beat off the attack. Things, however, looked even worse in the morning, when the natives were reinforced, and hemmed them in on every side. It was impossible to remain in the boma, as they could not hope to hold it for long against the hundreds of black fiends who surrounded them, and it was decided to make a sortie and, if possible, cut their way through and get out of the country. The attempt was made, and a fierce hand-to-hand fight ensued, in which Findlay received two bad spear thrusts, and would have been killed outright had not one of his boys come to the rescue, firing his rifle so close to Findlay’s assailant that he blew his arm clean off. Findlay was carried back into the boma, to which Gibbons and the few survivors also returned, and managed to strengthen their defences sufficiently to enable them to hold the savages at bay until a messenger could get through to the nearest Government station, from which a relief force of the King’s African Rifles was sent out, and after a week of terrible hardship Gibbons and his few remaining followers were rescued. Findlay, however, died later of his wounds.