The Land of Footprints

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Land of Footprints

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Such is a relief map of Juja proper. Four miles away, and on
another river, is Long Juja, a strictly utilitarian affair where
grow ostriches, cattle, sheep, and various irrigated things in
the bottom land. All the rest of the farm, or estate, or whatever
one would call it, is open plain, with here and there a river
bottom, or a trifle of brush cover. But never enough to constitute
more than an isolated and lonesome patch.

Before leaving London we had received from McMillan earnest
assurances that he kept open house, and that we must take
advantage of his hospitality should we happen his way. Therefore
when one of his white-robed Somalis approached us to inquire
respectfully as to what we wanted for dinner, we yielded weakly
to the temptation and told him. Then we marched us boldly to the
house and took possession.

All around the house ran a veranda, shaded bamboo curtains and
vines, furnished with the luxurious teakwood chairs of the
tropics of which you can so extend the arms as to form two
comfortable and elevated rests for your feet. Horns of various
animals ornamented the walls. A megaphone and a huge terrestrial
telescope on a tripod stood in one corner. Through the latter one
could examine at favourable times the herds of game on the
plains.

And inside-mind you, we were fresh from three months in the
wilderness-we found rugs, pictures, wall paper, a pianola, many
books, baths, beautiful white bedrooms with snowy mosquito
curtains, electric lights, running water, and above all an
atmosphere of homelike comfort. 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.

About two o'clock we suddenly turned off from the road,
apparently quite at random, down the long grassy interminable
incline that dipped slowly down and slowly up again over great
distance to form the Athi Plains. Along the road, with its
endless swarm of humanity, we had seen no game, but after a half
mile it began to appear. We encountered herds of zebra, kongoni,
wildebeeste, and "Tommies" standing about or grazing, sometimes
almost within range from the moving buckboard. After a time we
made out the trees and water tower of Juja ahead; and by four
o'clock had turned into the avenue of trees. Our approach had
been seen. Tea was ready, and a great and hospitable table of
bottles, ice, and siphons.

The next morning we inspected the stables, built of stone in a
hollow square, like a fort, with box stalls opening directly into
the courtyard and screened carefully against the deadly flies.
The horses, beautiful creatures, were led forth each by his proud
and anxious syce. We tried them all, and selected our mounts for
the time of our stay. The syces were small black men, lean and
well formed, accustomed to running afoot wherever their charges
went, at walk, lope or gallop. Thus in a day they covered
incredible distances over all sorts of country; but were always
at hand to seize the bridle reins when the master wished to
dismount. Like the rickshaw runners in Nairobi, they wore their
hair clipped close around their bullet heads and seemed to have
developed into a small compact hard type of their own. They ate
and slept with their horses.

Just outside the courtyard of the stables a little barred window
had been cut through. Near this were congregated a number of
Kikuyu savages wrapped in their blankets, receiving each in turn
a portion of cracked corn from a dusty white man behind the bars.
They were a solemn, unsmiling, strange type of savage, and they
performed all the manual work within the enclosure, squatting on
their heels and pulling methodically but slowly at the weeds,
digging with their pangas, carrying loads: to and fro, or
solemnly pushing a lawn mower, blankets wrapped shamelessly about
their necks. They were harried about by a red-faced beefy English
gardener with a marvellous vocabulary of several native languages
and a short hippo-hide whip. He talked himself absolutely purple
in the face without, as far as my observation went, penetrating
an inch below the surface. The Kikuyus went right on doing what
they were already doing in exactly the same manner. Probably the
purple Englishman was satisfied with that, but I am sure apoplexy
of either the heat or thundering variety has him by now.

Before the store building squatted another group of savages.
Perhaps in time one of the lot expected to buy something; or
possibly they just sat. Nobody but a storekeeper would ever have
time to find out. Such is the native way. The storekeeper in this
case was named John. Besides being storekeeper, he had charge of
the issuing of all the house supplies, and those for the white
men's mess; he must do all the worrying about the upper class
natives; he must occasionally kill a buck for the meat supply;
and he must be prepared to take out any stray tenderfeet that
happen along during McMillan's absence, and persuade them that
they are mighty hunters. His domain was a fascinating place, for
it contained everything from pianola parts to patent washstands.
The next best equipped place of the kind I know of is the
property room of a moving picture company.

We went to mail a letter, and found the postmaster to be a
gentle-voiced, polite little Hindu, who greeted us smilingly, and
attempted to conceal a work of art. We insisted; whereupon he
deprecatingly drew forth a copy of a newspaper cartoon having to
do with Colonel Roosevelt's visit. It was copied with
mathematical exactness, and highly coloured in a manner to throw
into profound melancholy the chauffeur of a coloured supplement
press. We admired and praised; whereupon, still shyly, he
produced more, and yet again more copies of the same cartoon.
When we left, he was reseating himself to the painstaking
valueless labour with which he filled his days. Three times a
week such mail as Juja gets comes in via native runner. We saw
the latter, a splendid figure, almost naked, loping easily, his
little bundle held before him.

Down past the office and dispensary we strolled, by the
comfortable, airy, white man's clubhouse. The headman of the
native population passed us with a dignified salute; a fine
upstanding deep-chested man, with a lofty air of fierce pride. He
and his handful of soldiers alone of the natives, except the
Somalis and syces, dwelt within the compound in a group of huts
near the gate. There when off duty they might be seen polishing
their arms, or chatting with their women. The latter were ladies
of leisure, with wonderful chignons, much jewelery, and
patterned Mericani wrapped gracefully about their pretty figures.

By the time we had seen all these things it was noon. We ate
lunch. The various members of the party decided to do various
things. I elected to go out with McMillan while he killed a
wildebeeste, and I am very glad I did. It was a most astonishing
performance.

You must imagine us driving out the gate in a buckboard behind
four small but lively white Abyssinian mules. In the front seat
were Michael, the Hottentot driver, and McMillan's Somali
gunbearer. In the rear seat were McMillan and myself, while a
small black syce perched precariously behind. Our rifles rested
in a sling before us. So we jogged out on the road to Long Juju,
examining with a critical eye the herds of game to right and left
of us. The latter examined us, apparently, with an eye as
critical. Finally, in a herd of zebra, we espied a lone
wildebeeste.

The wildebeeste is the Jekyll and Hyde of the animal kingdom. His
usual and familiar habit is that of a heavy, sluggish animal,
like our vanished bison. He stands solid and inert, his head
down; he plods slowly forward in single file, his horns swinging,
each foot planted deliberately. In short, he is the
personification of dignity, solid respectability, gravity of
demeanour. But then all of a sudden, at any small interruption,
he becomes the giddiest of created beings. Up goes his head and
tail, he buck jumps, cavorts, gambols, kicks up his heels, bounds
stiff-legged, and generally performs like an irresponsible
infant. To see a whole herd at once of these grave and reverend
seigneurs suddenly blow up into such light-headed capers goes far
to destroy one's faith in the stability of institutions.

Also the wildebeeste is not misnamed. He is a conservative, and
he sees no particular reason for allowing his curiosity to
interfere with his preconceived beliefs. The latter are
distrustful. Therefore he and his females and his young-I should
say small-depart when one is yet far away. I say small, because
I do not believe that any wildebeeste is ever young. They do not
resemble calves, but are exact replicas of the big ones, just as
Niobe's daughters are in nothing childlike, but merely smaller
women.

When we caught sight of this lone wildebeeste among the zebra, I
naturally expected that we would pull up the buckboard, descend,
and approach to within some sort of long range. Then we would
open fire. Barring luck, the wildebeeste would thereupon depart
"wilder and beestier than ever," as John McCutcheon has it. Not at
all! Michael, the Hottentot, turned the buckboard off the road,
headed toward the distant quarry, and charged at full speed! Over
stones we went that sent us feet into the air, down and out of
shallow gullies that seemed as though they would jerk the pole
from the vehicle with a grand rattlety-bang, every one hanging on
for his life. I was entirely occupied with the state of my spinal
column and the retention of my teeth, but McMillan must have been
keeping his eye on the game. One peculiarity of the wildebeeste
is that he cannot see behind him, and another is that he is
curious. It would not require a very large bump of curiosity,
however, to cause any animal to wonder what all the row was
about. There could be no doubt that this animal would sooner or
later stop for an instant to look for the purpose of seeing what
was up in jungleland; and just before doing so he would, for a
few steps, slow down from a gallop to a trot. McMillan was
watching for this symptom.

"Now!" he yelled, when he saw it.

Instantly Michael threw his weight into the right rein and
against the brake. We swerved so violently to the right and
stopped so suddenly that I nearly landed on the broad prairies.
The manoeuvre fetched us up broadside. The small black syce-and
heaven knows how HE had managed to hang on-darted to the heads
of the leading mules. At the same moment the wildebeeste turned,
and stopped; but even before he had swung his head, McMillan had
fired. It was extraordinarily good, quick work, the way he picked
up the long range from the spurts of dust where the bullets hit.
At the third or fourth shots he landed one. Immediately the beast
was off again at a tearing run pursued by a rapid fusillade from
the remaining shots. Then with a violent jerk and a wild yell we
were off again.

This time, since the animal was wounded, he made for rougher
country. And everywhere that wildebeeste went we too were sure to
go. We hit or shaved boulders that ought to have smashed a wheel,
we tore through thick brush regardless. Twice we charged
unhesitatingly over apparent precipices. I do not know the name
of the manufacturer of the buckboard. If I did, I should
certainly recommend it here. Twice more we swerved to our
broadside and cut loose the port batteries. Once more McMillan
hit. Then, on the fourth "run," we gained perceptibly. The beast
was weakening. When he came to a stumbling halt we were not over
a hundred yards from him, and McMillan easily brought him down.
We had chased him four or five miles, and McMillan had fired
nineteen shots, of which two had hit. The rifle practice
throughout had been remarkably good, and a treat to watch.
Personally, besides the fun of attending the show, I got a mighty
good afternoon's exercise.

We loaded the game aboard and jogged slowly back to the house,
for the mules were pretty tired. We found a neighbour, Mr.
Heatley of Kamiti Ranch who had "dropped down" twelve miles to
see us. On account of a theft McMillan now had all the Somalis
assembled for interrogation on the side verandas. The
interrogation did not amount to much, but while it was going on
the Sudanese headman and his askaris were quietly searching the
boys' quarters. After a time they appeared. The suspected men had
concealed nothing, but the searchers brought with them three of
McMillan's shirts which they had found among the effects of
another, and entirely unsuspected, boy named Abadie.

"How is this, Abadie?" demanded McMillan sternly.

Abadie hesitated. Then he evidently reflected that there is
slight use in having a deity unless one makes use of him.

"Bwana," said he with an engaging air of belief and candour, "God
must have put them there!"

That evening we planned a "general day" for the morrow. We took
boys and buckboards and saddle-horses, beaters, shotguns, rifles,
and revolvers, and we sallied forth for a grand and joyous time.
The day from a sporting standpoint was entirely successful, the
bag consisting of two waterbuck, a zebra, a big wart-hog, six
hares, and six grouse. Personally I was a little hazy and
uncertain. By evening the fever had me, and though I stayed at
Juja for six days longer, it was as a patient to McMillan's
unfailing kindness rather than as a participant in the life of
the farm.

XXVIII. A RESIDENCE AT JUJA

A short time later, at about middle of the rainy season, McMillan
left for a little fishing off Catalina Island. The latter is some
fourteen thousand miles of travel from Juja. Before leaving on
this flying trip, McMillan made us a gorgeous offer.

"If," said he, "you want to go it alone, you can go out and use
Juja as long as you please."

This offer, or, rather, a portion of it, you may be sure, we
accepted promptly. McMillan wanted in addition to leave us his
servants; but to this we would not agree. Memba Sasa and Mahomet
were, of course, members of our permanent staff. In addition to
them we picked up another house boy, named Leyeye. He was a
Masai. These proud and aristocratic savages rarely condescend to
take service of any sort except as herders; but when they do they
prove to be unusually efficient and intelligent. We had also a
Somali cook, and six ordinary bearers to do general labour. This
small safari we started off afoot for Juja. The whole lot cost us
about what we would pay one Chinaman on the Pacific Coast.

Next day we ourselves drove out in the mule buckboard. The rains
were on, and the road was very muddy. After the vital tropical
fashion the grass was springing tall in the natural meadows and
on the plains and the brief-lived white lilies and an abundance
of ground flowers washed the slopes with colour. Beneath the
grass covering, the entire surface of the ground was an inch or
so deep in water. This was always most surprising, for,
apparently, the whole country should have been high and dry.
Certainly its level was that of a plateau rather than a bottom
land; so that one seemed always to be travelling at an elevation.
Nevertheless walking or riding we were continually splashing, and
the only dry going outside the occasional rare "islands" of the
slight undulations we found near the very edge of the bluffs
above the rivers. There the drainage seemed sufficient to carry
off the excess. Elsewhere the hardpan or bedrock must have been
exceptionally level and near the top of the ground.

Nothing nor nobody seemed to mind this much. The game splashed
around merrily, cropping at the tall grass; the natives slopped
indifferently, and we ourselves soon became so accustomed to two
or three inches of water and wet feet that after the first two
days we never gave those phenomena a thought.

The world above at this season of the year was magnificent. The
African heavens are always widely spacious, but now they seemed
to have blown even vaster than usual. In the sweep of the vision
four or five heavy black rainstorms would be trailing their
skirts across an infinitely remote prospect; between them white
piled scud clouds and cumuli sailed like ships; and from them
reflected so brilliant a sunlight and behind all showed so
dazzling a blue sky that the general impression was of a fine
day. The rainstorms' gray veils slanted; tremendous patches of
shadow lay becalmed on the plains; bright sunshine poured
abundantly its warmth and yellow light.

So brilliant with both direct and reflected light and the values
of contrast were the heavens, that when one happened to stand
within one of the great shadows it became extraordinarily
difficult to make out game on the plains. The pupils contracted
to the brilliancy overhead. Often too, near sunset, the
atmosphere would become suffused with a lurid saffron light that
made everything unreal and ghastly. At such times the game seemed
puzzled by the unusual aspect of things. The zebra especially
would bark and stamp and stand their ground, and even come nearer
out of sheer curiosity. I have thus been within fifty yards of
them, right out in the open. At such times it was as though the
sky, instead of rounding over in the usual shape, had been thrust
up at the western horizon to the same incredible height as the
zenith. In the space thus created were piled great clouds through
which slanted broad bands of yellow light on a diminished world.

It rained with great suddenness on our devoted heads, and with a
curious effect of metamorphoslng the entire universe. One moment
all was clear and smiling, with the trifling exception of distant
rain squalls that amounted to nothing in the general scheme. Then
the horizon turned black, and with incredible swiftness the dark
clouds materialized out of nothing, rolled high to the zenith
like a wave, blotted out every last vestige of brightness. A
heavy oppressive still darkness breathed over the earth. Then
through the silence came a faraway soft drumming sound, barely to
be heard. As we bent our ears to catch this it grew louder and
louder, approaching at breakneck speed like a troop of horses. It
became a roar fairly terrifying in its mercilessly continued
crescendo. At last the deluge of rain burst actually as a relief.

And what a deluge! Facing it we found difficulty in breathing. In
six seconds every stitch we wore was soaked through, and only the
notebook, tobacco, and matches bestowed craftily in the crown of
the cork helmet escaped. The visible world was dark and
contracted. It seemed that nothing but rain could anywhere exist;
as though this storm must fill all space to the horizon and
beyond. Then it swept on and we found ourselves steaming in
bright sunlight. The dry flat prairie (if this was the first
shower for some time) had suddenly become a lake from the surface
of which projected bushes and clumps of grass. Every game trail
had become the water course of a swiftly running brook.

But most pleasant were the evenings at Juja, when, safe indoors,
we sat and listened to the charge of the storm's wild horsemen,
and the thunder of its drumming on the tin roof. The onslaughts
were as fierce and abrupt as those of Cossacks, and swept by as
suddenly. The roar died away in the distance, and we could then
hear the steady musical dripping of waters.

Pleasant it was also to walk out from Juja in almost any
direction. The compound, and the buildings and trees within it,
soon dwindled in the distances of the great flat plain. Herds of
game were always in sight, grazing, lying down, staring in our
direction. The animals were incredibly numerous. Some days they
were fairly tame, and others exceedingly wild, without any rhyme
or reason. This shyness or the reverse seemed not to be
individual to one herd; but to be practically universal. On a
"wild day" everything was wild from the Lone Tree to Long Juju.
It would be manifestly absurd to guess at the reason. Possibly
the cause might be atmospheric or electrical; possibly days of
nervousness might follow nights of unusual activity by the lions;
one could invent a dozen possibilities. Perhaps the kongonis
decided it.

At Juja we got to know the kongonis even better than we had
before. They are comical, quizzical beasts, with long-nosed
humorous faces, a singularly awkward construction, a shambling
gait; but with altruistic dispositions and an ability to get over
the ground at an extraordinary speed. Every move is a joke; their
expression is always one of grieved but humorous astonishment.
They quirk their heads sidewise or down and stare at an intruder
with the most comical air of skeptical wonder. "Well, look who's
here!" says the expression.

"Pooh!" says the kongoni himself, after a good look, "pooh!
pooh!" with the most insulting inflection.

He is very numerous and very alert. One or more of a grazing herd
are always perched as sentinels atop ant hills or similar small
elevations. On the sIightest intimation of danger they give the
alarm, whereupon the herd makes off at once, gathering in all
other miscellaneous game that may be in the vicinity. They will
go out of their way to do this, as every African hunter knows. It
immensely complicates matters; for the sportsman must not only
stalk his quarry, but he must stalk each and every kongoni as
well. Once, in another part of the country, C. and I saw a
kongoni leave a band of its own species far down to our right,
gallop toward us and across our front, pick up a herd of zebra we
were trying to approach and make off with them to safety. We
cursed that kongoni, but we admired him, for he deliberately ran
out of safety into danger for the purpose of warning those zebra.
So seriously do they take their job as policemen of the plains
that it is very common for a lazy single animal of another
species to graze in a herd of kongonis simply for the sake of
protection. Wildebeeste are much given to this.

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