John Walter Gregory
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 144
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. Excerpt: ...eyes. But I could not wait. We marched all day along the ridge that formed the waterparting between the rivers that drain the southern slopes of Kenya, and those to the west that form the main source of the Tana. The streams to our left flowed into the Ilyaini, and those to the west into the Thegana. Our course was in the main to the south-south-east. Though the trail ran up as well as down, we descended 400 feet during the day. We left the hill of Tuntum about three or four miles to the west. The leader of the Kikuyu opposition, who lived there, looked very much relieved when he saw we did not take the path that led to it. He drank a deep draught of " pombe," rolled off in a state of drunken jollity, and troubled us no more. We camped on a piece of open heath country in Kithunguli, at the height of 5440 feet. At the village close by, the people were all more or less drunk. Some natives came in for medicine, amongst them a man ill with smallpox. The moment my men saw him they fled, shouting, "Ndui, ndui" (Smallpox). I seized the man by the neck and ran him out of camp. With the aid of a porter named Stahabu, who knew some Kikuyu, and was so much pockmarked that he was also safe, I explained the difference between in-patients and outpatients. The native was told that he was one of the latter, and that if he tried to return to camp he would be shot; if he kept away, I promised to come out and see him again next morning before we started. The rest of the afternoon was occupied in a similar series of evictions. The Kikuyu were all intoxicated, and more than usually quarrelsome. The warriors came rolling into camp, shouting unintelligible cries, and flourishing their "sims," heavy double-edged, somewhat...