We were all very busy now, getting the wagons and harness ready and fixing up the loads for our journey to Uganda.
We found that if we were to get the loads through by the time agreed upon we should want at least five hundred porters, so we tried to engage some natives from the Wakamba[1] to go with us. With the native disinclination to move except just as they felt inclined, they absolutely refused to go; so it was arranged that I should go on ahead with the wagons, while Gibbons should come on later with the porters.
Wakamba, _i.e._, natives of the Kamba tribe who inhabit that region.
I started with one hundred loads of Government stuff on five wagons, while my camp outfit, food, &c., was carried on another, and took about twenty of the men with me. Being unable to get the necessary porters, we had to leave some of the loads behind in charge of two of the men, intending to return for them later, but, as it happened, we never saw them again.
I soon found that the donkey outfit did not work by any means as smoothly as we had hoped, the donkeys never having been in harness before and the men being new to the work. The drivers could not keep on the road, wagons capsized, and things went wrong generally. None of the rivers we had to cross were bridged, and when we had got the wagons down into the hollow of the river bed it was a terrible job to get them up on the other side; the only way being to get all the boys to push at the back, so that it took several hours’ hard work at each of the rivers before we managed to get donkeys, wagons, and loads from one side to the other.
The country generally was dry and bushy, being covered with thick scrub, which made our progress so slow that, after two or three days’ travelling, we were overtaken by Gibbons with the remainder of the men.
While we were sitting by the camp fire that night, waiting for a meal, I was very nearly shot by Gibbons, who was anxious to explain the working of the Snider rifle to me. Taking a rifle from an askari, he put in a cartridge, wishing to show me that it was absolutely impossible for it to go off at half-cock, and, pointing the rifle towards me, he said, “You see, it won’t go off now.” I objected, and was pushing the rifle to one side, when it actually did go off, the bullet whizzing close by my ear!