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Updated: May 18, 2025
Clifford Hill and myself, accompanied by our gunbearers and syces, then rode leisurely down the length of a shallow brushy cañon for a mile or so. There we dismounted and sat down to await the arrival of the others. These including Harold Hill, Captain D., five or six Wakamba spearmen, our own carriers, and the dogs came along more slowly, beating the bottoms on the off chance of game.
And from the straight line of their retreating flight I like to think that the rest of the flock never came back, but took their toll from the wider fields of the plateau above. Next day we reentered the game-haunted wilderness, nor did we see any more native villages until many weeks later we came into the country of the Wakamba. Our first sight of the Tana River was from the top of a bluff.
He proved staunch, a good tracker, an excellent hunter, and a most engaging individual. His name was Kongoni, and he was a Wakamba. But now we were confronted with a new problem: that of getting our twenty-nine chosen ones together again. They had totally disappeared. In all directions we had emissaries beating up the laggards.
We shouted to some of the savage Wakamba to go and investigate. They closed in from all sides, their long spears poised to strike. At the last moment out darted, not an animal, but a badly frightened old man armed with bow and arrow. He dashed out under the upraised spears, clasped one of the men around the knees, and implored protection.
"Wakamba!" he summoned; then "Monumwezi"; and finally "Baganda!" Thus the four tribes represented in his caravan were supplied. The men returned to their fires, and began the preparation of their evening meal. Kingozi turned to his own tent with a sigh of relief. Within it a cot had been erected, blankets spread. An officer's tin box stood open at one end. On the floor was a portable canvas bath.
As a matter of fact the white man and the Masai have never had it out. When the English, a few years since, were engaged in opening the country they carried on quite a stoutly contested little war with the Wakamba. These people put up so good a fight that the English anticipated a most bitter struggle with the Masai, whose territory lay next beyond. To their surprise the Masai made peace.
From the house site we descended the slope to where the ostriches and the cattle and the people were in the late sunlight swarming upward from the plains pastures below. These people were, to the chief extent, Wakamba, quite savage, but attracted here by the justness and fair dealing of the Hills.
A little file of Wakamba sung in unison one of the weird wavering minor chants peculiar to savage peoples everywhere; some Kavirondos simply howled in staccato barks like beasts. Between the extremes were many variations; but every man contributed to the uproar, and tapped his load rhythmically with his long stick.
It hit a native with similar results, plus astonished and grieved language. The rest followed in rapid-magazine-fire. Every one hit its mark fair and square. The air was full of sparks exploding in all directions. The brush was full of Wakamba, their blankets flapping in the breeze of their going. The convention was adjourned. There fell the sucking vacuum of a great silence.
But this I have noticed: that when a Wakamba is dead, he remains dead; but when a white man is dead ten more come to take his place." After an hour's elaboration of this theme Kingozi judged the moment propitious to return to the original subject. M'tela offered the opportunity. "This Duyche whom you have conquered you killed him?" "He escaped." "A-a-a-a." "He is still alive and in your land.
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