ON THE EDGE OF THE ATHI PLAINS, FACE TO FACE WITH GREAT HERDS OF WILD
GAME. UP IN A BALLOON AT NAIROBI
Before Colonel Roosevelt drew the eyes of the world on British East
Africa Nairobi was practically unheard of. The British colonial office
knew where it was and a fair number of English sportsmen had visited it
in the last six or eight years. Perhaps twenty-five or thirty Americans
had been in Nairobi on their way to the rich game fields that lie in all
directions from the town, but beyond these few outsiders the place was
unknown. Now it is decidedly on the map, thanks to our gallant and
picturesque Theodore. It has been mentioned in book and magazine to a
degree that nearly everybody can tell in a general way where and what it
is, even if he can not pronounce it.
Before coming to Nairobi I had read a lot about it, and yet when I
reached the place it seemed as though the descriptions had failed to
prepare me for what I saw. We arrived under unusual conditions. Files of
native soldiers were lined up on the platform of the station to welcome
the new governor, and the whole white population of the town, several
hundred in number, were massed in front of the building. The roofs and
trees were filled with natives and the broad open space beyond the
station was fringed with pony carts, bullock carts, rickshaws, cameras,
and some hotel 'buses. Several thousand people, mostly East Indians and
natives, were among those present. Lord Delamere, who has adopted East
Africa as his home, and who owns a hundred thousand acres or so of game
preserves, read an address of welcome, and Sir Percy, in white uniform
and helmet, responded with a speech that struck a popular note. There
were dozens of cameras snapping and the whole effect was distinctly
festive in appearance.
[Drawing: _In the Back Yard of Nairobi_]
[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. Dressed to Kill]
[Photograph: Courtesy of Boyce Balloonagraph Expedition. The Balloon
Ascension]
[Photograph: Courtesy of Boyce Balloonagraph Expedition. The Norfolk
Hotel, Nairobi]
The town lies on the edge of the Athi Plains, a broad sweep of
sun-bleached grass veldt many miles in extent. From almost any part of
the town one may look out on plains where great herds of wild game are
constantly in sight. In an hour's leisurely walk from the station a man
with a gun can get hartebeest, zebra, Grant's gazelle, Thompson's
gazelle, impalla, and probably wildebeest. One can not possibly count
the number of animals that feed contentedly within sight of the town of
Nairobi, and it is difficult to think that one is not looking out upon a
collection of domesticated game. Sometimes, as happened two nights
before we reached Nairobi, a lion will chase a herd of zebra and the
latter in fright will tear through the town, destroying gardens and
fences and flowers in a mad stampede. We met one man who goes out ten
minutes from town every other day and kills a kongoni (hartebeest) as
food for his dogs. If you were disposed to do so you could kill dozens
every day with little effort and almost no diminution of the visible
supply.
Nairobi is new and unattractive. There is one long main thoroughfare,
quite wide and fringed with trees, along which at wide intervals are the
substantial looking stone building of the Bank of India, the business
houses, the hotels, and numbers of cheap corrugated iron, one-story
shacks used for government purposes. A native barracks with low iron
houses and some more little iron houses used for medical experiments and
still some more for use as native hospitals are encountered as one takes
the half-mile ride from the station to the hotel. A big square filled
with large trees marks the park, and a number of rather pretentious
one-story buildings display signs that tell you where you may buy almost
anything, from a suit of clothes to a magazine rifle.
[Drawing: _The Main Street Is a Busy Place_]
Goanese, East Indian, and European shops are scattered at intervals
along this one long, wide street. Rickshaws, pedestrians, bullock carts,
horsemen, and heavily burdened porters are passing constantly back and
forth, almost always in the middle of the street. Bicycles, one or two
motorcycles, and a couple of automobiles are occasionally to be seen.
The aspect of the town suggests the activity of a new frontier place
where everybody is busy. At one end the long street loses itself in the
broad Athi Plains, at the other it climbs up over some low hills and
enters the residence district on higher ground. Here the hills are
generously covered with a straggly growth of tall, ungraceful trees,
among which, almost hidden from view, are the widely scattered bungalows
of the white population.
[Photograph: An Embo Apollo]
[Photograph: The Askari Patrols the Camp]
Branching off from the main street are side streets, some of them
thronged with East Indian bazaars, about which may be found all the
phases of life of an Indian city. Still beyond and parallel with the one
main street are sparsely settled streets which look ragged with their
tin shacks and scattered gardens.
Nairobi is not a beautiful place, but it is new and busy, and the people
who live there are working wonders in changing a bad location into what
some day will be a pretty place. It is over five thousand feet high,
healthy, and cold at night. Away off in the hills a mile or more from
town is Government House, where the governor lives, and near by is the
club and a new European hospital, looking out over a sweep of country
that on clear days includes Kilima-Njaro, over a hundred miles to the
southeast, and Mount Kenia, a hundred miles northeast.
You are still in civilization in Nairobi. Anything you want you may buy
at some of the shops, and almost anything you may want to eat or drink
may easily be had. There are weekly newspapers, churches, clubs, hotels,
and nearly all the by-products of civilization. One could live in
Nairobi, only a few miles from the equator, wear summer clothes at noon
and winter clothes at night, keep well, and not miss many of the
luxuries of life. The telegraph puts you in immediate touch with the
whole wide world, and on the thirtieth of September you can read the
Chicago _Tribune_ of August thirty-first.
At present the chief revenue of the government is derived from shooting
parties, and the officials are doing all they can to encourage the
coming of sportsmen. Each man who comes to shoot must pay two hundred
and fifty dollars for his license as well as employ at least thirty
natives for his transport. He must buy supplies, pay ten per cent.
import and export tax, and in many other ways spend money which goes
toward paying the expenses of government. The government also is
encouraging various agricultural and stock raising experiments, but
these have not yet passed the experimental stage. Almost anything may be
grown in British East Africa, but before agriculture can be made to pay
the vast herds of wild game must either be exterminated or driven away.
No fence will keep out a herd of zebra, and in one rush a field of grain
is ruined by these giant herds. Experiments have failed satisfactorily
to domesticate the zebra, and so he remains a menace to agriculture and
a nuisance in all respects except as adding a picturesque note to the
landscape.
Colonel Roosevelt, in a recent speech in Nairobi, spoke of British East
Africa as a land of enormous possibilities and promise, but in talks
with many men here I found that little money has been made by those who
have gone into agriculture in a large way. Drought and predatory herds
of game have introduced an element of uncertainty which has made
agriculture, as at present developed, unsatisfactory.
Colonel Roosevelt has become a popular idol in East Africa. Everywhere
one meets Englishmen who express the greatest admiration for him. He has
shrewdly analyzed conditions as they now exist and has picked out the
weak spots in the government. For many years prior to the arrival of Sir
Percy Girouard the country has been administered by weak executives, and
its progress has been greatly retarded thereby. The last governor was
kind, but inefficient, and some months ago was sent to the West Indies,
where he is officially buried. Roosevelt came, sized up the situation,
and made a speech at a big banquet in Nairobi. Nearly two hundred white
men in evening clothes were there. They came from all parts of East
Africa, and listened with admiration to the plain truths that Theodore
Roosevelt told them in the manner of a Dutch uncle. Since then he has
owned the country and could be elected to any office within the gift of
the people. He talked for over an hour, and it must have been a great
speech, if one may judge by the enthusiastic comments I have heard about
it. When an Englishman gets enthusiastic about a speech by an American
it must be a pretty good speech.
Newland and Tarlton is the firm that outfits most shooting parties that
start out from Nairobi. They do all the preliminary work and relieve you
of most of the worry. If you wish them to do so, they will get your
complete outfit, so you need not bring anything with you but a suitcase.
They will get your guns, your tents, your food supplies, your mules,
your head-man, your cook, your gunbearers, your askaris (native
soldiers), your interpreter, your ammunition, and your porters. They
will have the whole outfit ready for you by the time you arrive in
Nairobi. When you arrive in British East Africa, a-shooting bent, you
will hear of Newland and Tarlton so often that you will think they own
the country.
Mr. Newland met us in Mombasa, and through his agents sent all of our
London equipment of tents and guns and ammunition and food up to
Nairobi. When we arrived in Nairobi he had our porters ready, together
with tent boys, gunbearers, and all the other members of our _safari_,
and in three days we were ready to march. The firm has systematized
methods so much that it is simple for them to do what would be matters
of endless worry to the stranger. In course of time you pay the price,
and in our case it seemed reasonable, when one considers the work and
worry involved. Most English sportsmen come out in October and November,
after which time the shooting is at its height. Two years ago there were
sixty _safaris_, or shooting expeditions, sent out from Nairobi. When we
left, late in September, there were about thirty.
[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. The Great White Way in
Nairobi]
[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce The Busiest Place in Nairobi]
[Photograph: Umbrella Acacias]
[Drawing: _The New Governor Looks Something Like Roosevelt_]
Each party must have from thirty to a couple of hundred camp attendants,
depending upon the number of white men in the party. Each white man,
requires, roughly, thirty natives to take care of him. In our party of
four white people we had one hundred and eighteen. One would presume
that the game would speedily be exterminated, yet it is said that the
game is constantly increasing. After one day's ride on the railway it
would be hard to conceive of game being more plentiful than it was while
we were there. Mr. Roosevelt carried nearly three hundred men with him,
collected a great quantity of game, and necessarily spent a great deal
of money. It is said that the expenses of his expedition approached ten
thousand dollars a month, but the chances are that this figure is much
more than the actual figure.
At the time of our arrival there was a shortage in the porter supply,
and we were obliged to take out men from a number of different tribes.
Swahili porters are considered the best, but there are not enough to go
round, so we had to take Swahilis, Bagandas, Kikuyus, Kavirondos,
Lumbwas, Minyamwezis, and a lot more of assorted races. Each porter
carries sixty pounds on his head, and when the whole outfit is on the
trail it looks like a procession of much importance.
The Norfolk Hotel is the chief rendezvous of Nairobi. In the course of
the afternoon nearly all the white men on hunting bent show up at the
hotel and patronize the bar. They come in wonderful hunting regalia and
in all the wonderful splendor of the Britisher when he is afield. There
is nearly always a great coming and going of men riding up, and of
rickshaws arriving and departing. Usually several tired sportsmen are
stretched out on the veranda of the long one-storied building, reading
the ancient London papers that are lying about. Professional guides,
arrayed in picturesque Buffalo Bill outfits, with spurs and
hunting-knives and slouch hats, are among those present, and amateur
sportsmen in crisp khaki and sun helmets and new puttees swagger back
and forth to the bar. There is no denying the fact that there is
considerable drinking in Nairobi. There was as much before we got there
as there was after we got there, however. After the arrival of the
European steamer at Mombasa business is brisk for several days as the
different parties sally forth for the wilds.
[Drawing: _At the Norfolk Hotel Bar_]
On our ship there were four different parties. A young American from
Boston, who has been spending several years doing archæological work in
Crete, accompanied by a young English cavalry officer, were starting out
for a six-weeks' shoot south of the railway and near Victoria Nyanza.
Two professional ivory hunters were starting for German East Africa by
way of the lake. Mr. Boyce and his African balloonograph party of seven
white men were preparing for the photographing expedition in the Sotik,
and our party of four was making final preparations for our march.
Consequently there was much hurrying about, and Newland and Tarlton's
warehouse was the center of throngs of waiting porters and the scene of
intense activity as each party sorted and assembled its mountains of
supplies.
Seager and Wormald got off first, going by train to Kijabe, where they
were to begin their ten days' march in the Sotik. Here they were to try
their luck for two or three weeks and then march back, preparatory to
starting home.
The professional ivory hunters were slow in starting. There was delay in
getting mules. One of them had shot three hundred elephants in the
Belgian Congo during the last four years, and it was suspected he had
been poaching. The other had been caught by the Belgian authorities on
his last trip, lost all his ivory and guns by confiscation, but was
ready to make another try. The ivory game is a rich one and there are
always venturesome men who are willing to take chances with the law in
getting the prizes.
The Boyce party with its two balloons and its great number of box kites
and its moving picture equipment and its twenty-nine cameras and its
vast equipment was slow in starting, but it expected to get away on
September twenty-fourth, the day after we left. They planned to fill
their balloon in Nairobi and tow it at the end of a special train as far
as Kijabe, where they were to strike inland from the railway. They were
encamped on a hill overlooking the city, with their two hundred and
thirty porters ready for the field and their balloon ready to make the
first ascension ever attempted in East Africa.
Throngs of natives squatted about, watching the final preparations, and
doubtless wondered what the strange, swaying object was. On the evening
of the twenty-second the party gave a moving picture show at one of the
clubs for the benefit of St. Andrew's church. A great crowd of
fashionably dressed people turned out and saw the motion picture records
of events which they had seen in life only a couple of days before.
There were moving pictures of the arrival of the governor's special
train, his march through the city, and many other events that were fresh
in the minds of the audience. There were also motion pictures taken on
the ship that brought us down from Naples to Mombasa, and it was most
interesting to see our fellow passengers and friends reproduced before
us in their various athletic activities while on shipboard. Mr. Boyce
gave an afternoon show for children, an evening show for grown-ups, and
was to give another for the natives the following night. The charities
of Nairobi were much richer because of Mr. Boyce and his African
Balloonograph Expedition.
While in Nairobi we visited the little station where experiments are
being made in the "sleeping sickness." An intelligent young English
doctor is conducting the investigations and great hopes are entertained
of much new information about that most mysterious ailment that has
swept whole colonies of blacks away in the last few years.
In many little bottles were specimens of the deadly tsetse fly that
causes all the infection. And the most deadly of all was the small one
whose distinguishing characteristic was its wings, which crossed over
its back. These we were told to look out for and to avoid them, if
possible. They occur only in certain districts and live in the deep
shade, near water. They also are day-biting insects, who do their biting
only between eleven o'clock in the morning and five o'clock in the
afternoon.
In the station there were a number of monkeys, upon which the fly was
being tried. They were in various stages of the disease, but it seemed
impossible to tell whether their illness was due to the sleeping
sickness germ or was due to tick fever, a common malady among monkeys.
In one of the rooms of the laboratory there were natives holding little
cages of tsetse flies against the monkeys, which were pinioned to the
floor by the natives. The screened cages were held close to the stomach
of the helpless monkey, and little apertures in the screen permitted the
fly to settle upon and bite the animal.
There are certain wide belts of land in Africa called the "tsetse fly
belts," where horses, mules and cattle can not live. These districts
have been known for a number of years, long before the sleeping sickness
became known. In the case of animals, the danger could be minimized by
keeping the animals out of those belts, but in the case of humans the
same can not be done. One infected native from a sleeping sickness
district can carry the disease from one end of the country to the other,
and when once it breaks out the newly infected district is doomed.
Consequently the British authorities are greatly alarmed, for by means
of this deadly fly the whole population of East Africa might be wiped
out if no remedy is discovered. It has not yet been absolutely proven
that East Africa is a "white man's country," and in the end it may be
necessary for him to give up hope of making it more than a place of
temporary residence and exploration.
We were also shown some ticks. They are the pests of Africa. They exist
nearly every place and carry a particularly malicious germ that gives
one "tick fever." It is not a deadly fever, but it is recurrent and
weakening. There are all kinds of ticks, from little red ones no bigger
than a grain of pepper to big fat ones the size of a finger-nail, that
are exactly the color of the ground. They seem to have immortal life,
for they can exist for a long time without food. Doctor Ward told us of
some that he had put in a box, where they lived four years without food
or water. He also told us of one that was sent to the British museum,
put on a card with a pin through it, and lived over two years in this
condition. It is assumed, however, that it sustained fatal injuries,
because after a two years' fight against its wound it finally succumbed.
We were told to avoid old camping grounds while on _safari_, because
these spots were usually much infested with ticks waiting for new
camping parties. Wild game is always covered with ticks and carries them
all over the land. As you walk through the grass in the game country the
ticks cling to your clothes and immediately seek for an opening where
they may establish closer relations with you. Some animals, like the
rhino and the eland, have tick birds that sit upon their backs and eat
the ticks. The egrets police the eland and capture all predatory ticks,
while the rhino usually has half a dozen little tick birds sitting upon
him.
However, we were starting out in a day or so, and in a few days expected
to learn a lot more about ticks than we then knew.
It is supposed to require a certain amount of nerve to go lion shooting.
It is also supposed to require an additional amount to face an angry
rhino or to attempt to get African buffalo. The last-named creature is a
vindictive, crafty beast that is feared by old African hunters more than
they fear any other animal. In consequence of these dangers we decided
that it might be well to give our nerves a thorough test before going
out with them. If they were not in good condition it would be well to
know of it before rather than after going up against a strange and
hostile lion.
That is why we went up in the balloon in Nairobi. The balloon was one of
the two Boyce balloons and had never been tried. It was small, of twelve
thousand cubic feet capacity, as compared with the seventy thousand foot
balloons that do the racing. It was also being tried at an altitude of
over five thousand feet under uncertain wind and heat conditions, and so
the element of uncertainty was aggravated. We felt that if we could go
up in a new balloon of a small size it might demonstrate whether we
should later go up a tree or stand pat against a charging menagerie.
There was a great crowd gathered on the hill where this balloon was
being inflated. Since five o'clock in the morning the gas had been
generating in the wooden tanks, and from these was being conducted by a
cloth tube to the mouth of the balloon. The natives squatted wonderingly
about in a circle, mystified and excited. At three o'clock the balloon
was over half filled and was swaying savagely at its anchorage. A strong
wind was blowing, and Mr. Lawrence, who had charge of the ascension, was
apprehensive. He feared to fill the balloon to its capacity lest the
expansion of the gas due to the hot sun should explode it.
At half past three the basket was attached and it looked small--about
the size of a large bushel basket, three feet in diameter and three feet
deep. The balloon, heavily laden with sand-bags, was lightened until it
could almost rise, and in this condition was led across to an open spot
sufficiently far from the nearest trees. The crowd thronged up pop-eyed
and quivering with excitement. Then there was a long wait until the wind
had died down a bit, which it did after a while. The eventful moment had
arrived, and Mr. Stephenson, of our party, climbed into the basket. He
is only six feet five inches in height and weighs only two hundred and
thirty pounds. He had on a pair of heavy hunting boots, for we were
leaving for the hunting grounds immediately after the ascension. One by
one the restraining bags of sand were taken off, but still the balloon
sat on the ground without any inclination to do otherwise.
A wave of disappointment spread over the crowd. Suddenly a brilliant
inspiration struck the gallant aëronaut. He took off one of his heavy
hunting boots and cast it overboard. The balloon arose a foot or two and
then sagged back to earth. Then the other boot was cast over and the
balloon rose several feet, swaying and whipping savagely over the heads
of the crowd. The wind was now blowing pretty hard, and when the wire
was run out the balloon started almost horizontally for the nearest
tree, rising slightly.
[Drawing: _Throwing Out Ballast_]
The wire was stopped at once and the balloon thus suddenly restrained,
changed its horizontal course to an upward one. At about sixty feet up
the wire was again paid out and the balloon made a dash for the trees
again. Once more the balloon was stopped and rose to a height of one
hundred and fifty feet, where it swayed about with the pleasant face of
Stephenson looking over the edge of the basket. He had to sit down, as
there was not room to stand. The ascension seemed a failure with the
handicap of two hundred and thirty pounds, and so the balloon was reeled
down to the earth again. It was not a great ascension, but the amateur
aëronaut had gained the distinction of making the first balloon
ascension ever made in East Africa. He would have gone higher if his
shoes had been heavier.
To me fell the next chance, and I knew that my one hundred and forty
pounds would not seriously handicap the balloon. Once more there was a
long wait until the wind died down, and all of a sudden the cylinder of
wire was released and the ground sank hundreds of feet below me. The
horizon widened and the whole vast plain of the African highlands
stretched out with an ever-widening horizon. New mountain peaks rose far
away and native villages with ant-like people moving about appeared in
unexpected quarters. Away below, the crowd of people looked like little
insects as they gazed up at the balloon. Grasping the ropes that led
from the basket to the balloon, I stood and waved at them and could hear
the shouts come up from a thousand feet below.
I was not frightened. There was no sensation of motion as long as the
balloon was ascending. Aside from looking at the wonderful scene that
opened out before me, I believe I thought chiefly about where I should
land in case the wire broke. The balloon would undoubtedly go many miles
before descending, and five miles in any direction would lead me into a
primitive jungle or veldt. A hundred miles would take me into almost
unexplored districts in some directions, where the natives would greet
me as some supernatural being. Perhaps I might be greeted as a god
and--just in the midst of these reflections they began to reel in the
balloon. The sudden stopping was not pleasant, for then the balloon
began to sway. Slowly the earth came nearer and the wind howled through
the rigging and the partly filled bag flapped and thundered. The wire,
about as thick as a piano wire, looked frail, but at last after a slow
and tedious descent a safe landing was made amid the wondering natives.
Cameras clicked and the moving picture machine worked busily as the
balloon was secured to earth again.
To Mrs. Akeley of our party fell the next chance to go up. As she was
lifted into the basket the feminine population of Nairobi gazed in
wonder that a woman should dare venture up in a balloon. The cameras
clicked some more, somebody shook hands with her, and it began to look
quite like a leave-taking. Just when all was ready the wind sprang up
savagely and an ascension seemed inexpedient. There was a long wait and
still the wind continued in gusts. At last it was determined that we
might as well settle down for better conditions, so Mrs. Akeley was
lifted out and we waited impatiently for the wind to die down.
At last it died down, all was hurriedly prepared for the ascension, and
Mrs. Akeley took her place again in the basket. In an instant the
balloon shot up a couple of hundred feet and was held there for a
moment. The wind once more sprang up and the balloon was drawn down amid
the cheers of the crowd. She had been the first woman to make an
ascension in British East Africa, if not in all of Africa.
We then mounted our mules and rode out on the open plains. Several hours
before, our entire camp had moved and we were to join them at a
prearranged spot out on the Athi Plains. All our preliminary worries
were over and at last we were actually started. At six o'clock, far
across the country we saw the gleaming lights of our camp-fires and the
green tents that were to be our homes for many weeks to come. Enormous
herds of hartebeest and wildebeest were on each side, and countless
zebras. That night two of us heard the first bark of the zebra, and we
thought it must be the bark of distant dogs. It was one of our first
surprises to learn that zebras bark instead of neigh.