These are used to stab upward from
below, the wielder lying flat in the grass. Some of these men
were fantastically painted with a groundwork ochre, on which had
been drawn intricate wavy designs on the legs, like stockings,
and varied stripes across the face. One particularly ingenious
individual, stark naked, had outlined a roughly entire skeleton! He
was a gruesome object! They stalked here and there through the
camp, looking at our men and their activities with a lofty and
silent contempt.
You may be sure we had our arrangements, though they did not
appear on the surface. The askaris, or native soldiers, were
posted here and there with their muskets; the gunbearers also
kept our spare weapons by them. The askaris could not hit a barn, but
they could make a noise. The gunbearers were fair shots.
Of course the chief and his prime minister came in. They were
evil-looking savages. To them we paid not the slightest
attention, but went about our usual business as though they did
not exist. At the end of an hour they of their own initiative
greeted us. We did not hear them. Half an hour later they
disappeared, to return after an interval, followed by a string of
young men bearing firewood. Evidently our bearing had impressed
them, as we had intended. We then unbent far enough to recognize
them, carried on a formal conversation for a few moments, gave
them adequate presents and dismissed them. Then we ordered the
askaris to clear camp and to keep it clear. No women had
appeared. Even the gifts of firewood had been carried by men, a
most unusual proceeding.
As soon as dark fell the drums began roaring in the forest all
about our clearing, and the chanting to rise. We instructed our
men to shoot first and inquire afterward, if a shenzi so much as
showed himself in the clearing. This was not as bad as it
sounded; the shenzi stood in no immediate danger. Then we turned
in to a sleep rather light and broken by uncertainty. I do not
think we were in any immediate danger of a considered attack, for
these people were not openly hostile; but there was always a
chance that the savages might by their drum pounding and dancing
work themselves into a frenzy. Then we might have to do a little
rapid shooting. Not for one instant the whole night long did
those misguided savages cease their howling and dancing. At any
rate we cost them a night's sleep.
Next morning we took up our march through the deserted tracks
once more. Not a sign of human life did we encounter. About ten
o'clock we climbed down a tremendous gash of a box canyon with
precipitous cliffs. From below we looked back to see, perched
high against the skyline, the motionless figures of many savages
watching us from the crags. So we had had company after all, and
we had not known it. This canyon proved to be the boundary line.
With the same abruptness we passed again into friendly country.
(d) OUT THE OTHER SIDE
We left the jungle finally when we turned on a long angle away
from Kenia. At first the open country of the foothills was
closely cultivated with fields of rape and maize. We saw some of
the people breaking new soil by means of long pointed sticks. The
plowmen quite simply inserted the pointed end in the ground and
pried. It was very slow hard work. In other fields the grain
stood high and good. From among the stalks, as from a miniature
jungle, the little naked totos stared out, and the good-natured
women smiled at us. The magnificent peak of Kenia had now shaken
itself free of the forests. On its snow the sunrises and sunsets
kindled their fires. The flames of grass fires, too, could
plainly be made out, incredible distances away, and at daytime,
through the reek, were fascinating suggestions of distant rivers,
plains, jungles, and hills. You see, we were still practically on
the wide slope of Kenia's base, though the peak was many days
away, and so could look out over wide country.
The last half day of this we wandered literally in a rape field.
The stalks were quite above our heads, and we could see but a few
yards in any direction. In addition the track had become a
footpath not over two feet wide. We could occasionally look back
to catch glimpses of a pack or so bobbing along on a porter's
head. From our own path hundreds of other paths branched; we were
continually taking the wrong fork and moving back to set the
safari right before it could do likewise. This we did by drawing
a deep double line in the earth across the wrong trail. Then we
hustled on ahead to pioneer the way a little farther; our
difficulties were further complicated by the fact that we had
sent our horses back to Nairobi for fear of the tsetse fly, so we
could not see out above the corn. All we knew was that we ought
to go down hill.
At the ends of some of our false trails we came upon fascinating
little settlements: groups of houses inside brush enclosures,
with low wooden gateways beneath which we had to stoop to enter.
Within were groups of beehive houses with small naked children
and perhaps an old woman or old man seated cross-legged under a
sort of veranda. From them we obtained new-and confusing-
directions.
After three o'clock we came finally out on the edge of a cliff
fifty or sixty feet high, below which lay uncultivated bottom
lands like a great meadow and a little meandering stream. We
descended the cliff, and camped by the meandering stream.
