Our very first start into the new country was made when we piled out
from the little train standing patiently awaiting the good pleasure
of our descent. That feature strikes me with ever new wonder-the
accommodating way trains of the Uganda Railway have of waiting for you.
One day, at a little wayside station, C. and I were idly exchanging
remarks with the only white man in sight, killing time until the engine
should whistle to a resumption of the journey. The guard lingered about
just out of earshot. At the end of five minutes C. happened to catch his
eye, whereupon he ventured to approach.
“When you have finished your conversation,” said he politely, “we are
all ready to go on.”
On the morning in question there were a lot of us to disembark-one
hundred and twenty-two, to be exact-of which four were white. We were
not yet acquainted with our men, nor yet with our stores, nor with the
methods of our travel. The train went off and left us in the middle of
a high plateau, with low ridges running across it, and mountains in the
distance. Men were squabbling earnestly for the most convenient loads to
carry, and as fast as they had gained undisputed possession, they marked
the loads with some private sign of their own. M'ganga, the headman,
tall, fierce, big-framed and bony, clad in fez, a long black overcoat,
blue puttees and boots, stood stiff as a ramrod, extended a rigid right
arm and rattled off orders in a high dynamic voice. In his left hand he
clasped a bulgy umbrella, the badge of his dignity and the symbol of his
authority. The four askaris, big men too, with masterful high-cheekboned
countenances, rushed here and there seeing that the orders were carried
out. Expostulations, laughter, the sound of quarrelling rose and fell.
Never could the combined volume of it all override the firecracker
stream of M'ganga's eloquence.
We had nothing to do with it all, but stood a little dazed, staring at
the novel scene. Our men were of many tribes, each with its own cast
of features, its own notions of what befitted man's performance of his
duties here below. They stuck together each in its clan. A fine free
individualism of personal adornment characterized them. Every man
dressed for his own satisfaction solely. They hung all sorts of things
in the distended lobes of their ears. One had succeeded in inserting a
fine big glittering tobacco tin. Others had invented elaborate topiary
designs in their hair, shaving their heads so as to leave strange tufts,
patches, crescents on the most unexpected places. Of the intricacy of
these designs they seemed absurdly proud. Various sorts of treasure
trove hung from them-a bunch of keys to which there were no locks,
discarded hunting knives, tips of antelope horns, discharged brass
cartridges, a hundred and one valueless trifles plucked proudly from
the rubbish heap. They were all clothed. We had supplied each with a
red blanket, a blue jersey, and a water bottle. The blankets they were
twisting most ingeniously into turbans. Beside these they sported a
great variety of garments. Shooting coats that had seen better days, a
dozen shabby overcoats-worn proudly through the hottest noons-raggety
breeches and trousers made by some London tailor, queer baggy homemades
of the same persuasion, or quite simply the square of cotton cloth
arranged somewhat like a short tight skirt, or nothing at all as the
man's taste ran. They were many of them amusing enough; but somehow they
did not look entirely farcical and ridiculous, like our negroes
putting on airs. All these things were worn with a simplicity of quiet
confidence in their entire fitness. And beneath the red blanket turbans
the half-wild savage faces peered out.
Now Mahomet approached. Mahomet was my personal boy. He was a Somali
from the Northwest coast, dusky brown, with the regular clear-cut
features of a Greek marble god. His dress was of neat khaki, and he
looked down on savages; but, also, as with all the dark-skinned races,
up to his white master. Mahomet was with me during all my African stay,
and tested out nobly. As yet, of course, I did not know him.
“Chakula taiari,” said he.
That is Swahili. It means literally “food is ready.” After one has
hunted in Africa for a few months, it means also “paradise is opened,”
“grief is at an end,” “joy and thanksgiving are now in order,” and
similar affairs. Those two words are never forgotten, and the veriest
beginner in Swahili can recognize them without the slightest effort.
We followed Mahomet. Somehow, without orders, in all this confusion, the
personal staff had been quietly and efficiently busy. Drawn a little to
one side stood a table with four chairs. The table was covered with a
white cloth, and was set with a beautiful white enamel service. We
took our places. Behind each chair straight as a ramrod stood a neat
khaki-clad boy. They brought us food, and presented it properly on the
left side, waiting like well-trained butlers. We might have been in
a London restaurant. As three of us were Americans, we felt a trifle
dazed. The porters, having finished the distribution of their loads,
squatted on their heels and watched us respectfully.
And then, not two hundred yards away, four ostriches paced slowly across
the track, paying not the slightest attention to us-our first real
wild ostriches, scornful of oranges, careless of tourists, and rightful
guardians of their own snowy plumes. The passage of these four solemn
birds seemed somehow to lend this strange open-air meal an exotic
flavour. We were indeed in Africa; and the ostriches helped us to
realize it.
We finished breakfast and arose from our chairs. Instantly a half dozen
men sprang forward. Before our amazed eyes the table service, the chairs
and the table itself disappeared into neat packages. M'ganga arose to
his feet.
“Bandika!” he cried.
The askaris rushed here and there actively.
“Bandika! bandika! bandika!” they cried repeatedly.
The men sprang into activity. A struggle heaved the varicoloured
multitude-and, lo! each man stood upright, his load balanced on his
head. At the same moment the syces led up our horses, mounted and headed
across the little plain whence had come the four ostriches. Our African
journey had definitely begun.
Behind us, all abreast marched the four gunbearers; then the four syces;
then the safari single file, an askari at the head bearing proudly his
ancient musket and our banner, other askaris flanking, M'ganga bringing
up the rear with his mighty umbrella and an unsuspected rhinoceros-hide
whip. The tent boys and the cook scattered along the flank anywhere, as
befitted the free and independent who had nothing to do with the serious
business of marching. A measured sound of drumming followed the beating
of loads with a hundred sticks; a wild, weird chanting burst from the
ranks and died down again as one or another individual or group felt
moved to song. One lot had a formal chant and response. Their leader, in
a high falsetto, said something like,
“Kuna koma kuno,”
and all his tribesmen would follow with a single word in a deep gruff
tone,
“Za-la-nee!”
All of which undoubtedly helped immensely.
The country was a bully country, but somehow it did not look like
Africa. That is to say, it looked altogether too much like any amount
of country at home. There was nothing strange and exotic about it. We
crossed a little plain, and up over a small hill, down into a shallow
canyon that seemed to be wooded with live oaks, across a grass valley
or so, and around a grass hill. Then we went into camp at the edge of
another grass valley, by a stream across which rose some ordinary low
cliffs.
That is the disconcerting thing about a whole lot of this country-it
is so much like home. Of course, there are many wide districts exotic
enough in all conscience-the jungle beds of the rivers, the bamboo
forests, the great tangled forests themselves, the banana groves down
the aisles of which dance savages with shields-but so very much of it is
familiar. One needs only church spires and a red-roofed village or so
to imagine one's self in Surrey. There is any amount of country
like Arizona, and more like the uplands of Wyoming, and a lot of it
resembling the smaller landscapes of New England. The prospects of the
whole world are there, so that somewhere every wanderer can find the
countryside of his own home repeated. And, by the same token, that is
exactly what makes a good deal of it so startling. When a man sees a
file of spear-armed savages, or a pair of snorty old rhinos, step out
into what has seemed practically his own back yard home, he is even more
startled than if he had encountered them in quite strange surroundings.
We rode into the grass meadow and picked camp site. The men trailed in
and dumped down their loads in a row.
At a signal they set to work. A dozen to each tent got them up in a
jiffy. A long file brought firewood from the stream bed. Others carried
water, stones for the cook, a dozen other matters. The tent boys rescued
our boxes; they put together the cots and made the beds, even before the
tents were raised from the ground. Within an incredibly short space of
time the three green tents were up and arranged, each with its bed made,
its mosquito bar hung, its personal box open, its folding washstand
ready with towels and soap, the table and chairs unlimbered. At a
discreet distance flickered the cook campfire, and at a still discreeter
distance the little tents of the men gleamed pure white against the
green of the high grass.