[Illustration: MASAI WARRIORS FROM NAIVASHA]
Some of the Masai tribe were in the neighbourhood, and visited our camp. This was the first time I had come across any of this race, of whom so much has been written, and I was naturally very much interested. They seemed very friendly, and, in spite of their warlike reputation, we had no trouble with them at all. Physically, they were very fine specimens of the African native, and certainly make very good fighting-men.
We were about to enter the practically unknown country of the Kikuyu tribe, a people whose reputation was such that only the most daring of the white traders would even venture to set foot over the boundary, and then only at the greatest risk of their lives and goods.
Those who only know the Kikuyu people as they are to-day may find some difficulty in crediting many of the statements I shall make as to their character and reputation at the time when I spent some three or four very lively years among them, but a short quotation from the late Sir Gerald Portal’s book on the “British Mission to Uganda in 1893,” dealing with the race as they were then—which accurately describes them as I found them five years later—may help the doubting ones to a clearer realization of the facts.
Describing the British East Africa Company’s station, Fort Smith,[2] in the Kikuyu country, Sir Gerald says:—
“The Kikuyu tribes were practically holding the Company’s station in a state of siege.” Later on he says: “We left the open plain and plunged into the darkness of a dense belt of forest, which forms the natural boundary of the regions inhabited by the treacherous, cunning, and usually hostile people of Kikuyu. Warned by the state of affairs which we had heard was prevailing at the Company’s fort in this district, we were careful to keep all our people close together, every man within a couple of paces of his neighbour. One European marched in front, one in the rear, and one in the middle of the long line. The Wa-Kikuyu, as we knew, seldom or never show themselves, or run the risk of a fight in the open, but lie like snakes in the long grass, or in some dense bush within a few yards of the line of march, watching for a gap in the ranks, or for some incautious porter to stray away, or loiter a few yards behind; even then not a sound is heard; a scarcely perceptible ‘twang’ of a small bow, the almost inaudible ‘whizz’ of a little poisoned arrow for a dozen yards through the air, a slight puncture in the arm, throat, or chest, followed, almost inevitably, by the death of a man. Another favourite trick of the Wa-Kikuyu is to plant poisoned skewers in the path, set at an angle of about forty-five degrees, pointing towards the direction from which the stranger is expected. If the path is much overgrown or hidden by the luxuriant growth of long grass, these stakes are of much greater length and so pointed that they would pierce the stomach of any one advancing towards them.[3] Keeping a sharp look-out for these delicate attentions, our progress was inevitably slow, but at length we arrived without further adventure at the strong stockade, ditch, brick houses, and well-guarded stores known as Fort Smith in Kikuyu, above which was floating the Company’s flag.