We Fell Into Easy Chairs, And
Seized Books And Magazines.
The Somalis brought us trays with
iced and fizzy drinks in thin glasses.
When the time came we
crossed the veranda in the rear to enter a spacious separate
dining-room. The table was white with napery, glittering with
silver and glass, bright with flowers. We ate leisurely of a
well-served course dinner, ending with black coffee, shelled
nuts, and candied fruit. Replete and satisfied we strolled back
across the veranda to the main house. F. raised his hand.
"Hark!" he admonished us.
We held still. From the velvet darkness came the hurried petulant
barking of zebra; three hyenas howled.
XXVII. A VISIT AT JUJA
Next day we left all this; and continued our march. About a month
later, however, we encountered McMillan himself in Nairobi. I was
just out from a very hard trip to the coast-Billy not with
me-and wanted nothing so much as a few days' rest. McMillan's
cordiality was not to be denied, however, so the very next day
found us tucking ourselves into a buckboard behind four white
Abyssinian mules. McMillan, some Somalis and Captain Duirs came
along in another similar rig. Our driver was a Hottentot
half-caste from South Africa. He had a flat face, a yellow skin,
a quiet manner, and a competent hand. His name was Michael. At
his feet crouched a small Kikuyu savage, in blanket ear ornaments
and all the fixings, armed with a long lashed whip and raucous
voice. At any given moment he was likely to hop out over the
moving wheel, run forward, bat the off leading mule, and hop back
again, all with the most extraordinary agility. He likewise
hurled what sounded like very opprobrious epithets at such
natives as did not get out the way quickly enough to suit him.
The expression of his face, which was that of a person steeped in
woe, never changed.
We rattled out of Nairobi at a great pace, and swung into the
Fort Hall Road. This famous thoroughfare, one of the three or
four made roads in all East Africa, is about sixty miles long. It
is a strategic necessity but is used by thousands of natives on
their way to see the sights of the great metropolis. As during
the season there is no water for much of the distance, a great
many pay for their curiosity with their lives. The road skirts
the base of the hills, winding in and out of shallow canyons and
about the edges of rounded hills. To the right one can see far
out across the Athi Plains.
We met an almost unbroken succession of people. There were long
pack trains of women, quite cheerful, bent over under the weight
of firewood or vegetables, many with babies tucked away in the
folds of their garments; mincing dandified warriors with
poodle-dog hair, skewers in their ears, their jewelery brought to
a high polish a fatuous expression of self-satisfaction on their
faces, carrying each a section of sugarcane which they now used
as a staff but would later devour for lunch; bearers, under
convoy of straight soldierly red-sashed Sudanese, transporting
Government goods; wild-eyed staring shenzis from the forest, with
matted hair and goatskin garments, looking ready to bolt aside at
the slightest alarm; coveys of marvellous and giggling damsels,
their fine-grained skin anointed and shining with red oil, strung
with beads and shells, very coquettish and sure of their feminine
charm; naked small boys marching solemnly like their elders;
camel trains from far-off Abyssinia or Somaliland under convoy of
white-clad turbaned grave men of beautiful features; donkey
safaris in charge of dirty degenerate looking East Indians
carrying trade goods to some distant post-all these and many
more, going one way or the other, drew one side, at the sight of
our white faces, to let us pass.
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