Uganda by Pen and Camera/Chapter 9
Chapter IX
Uganda Once More
After a journey home on furlough, I reached Mombasa again at 10 a.m. on August 19, 1903. We were all soon on shore with our baggage.
The first train for Uganda, we found, was to leave on Saturday; this was Wednesday. What a difference from the old style, the waiting from a fortnight to two months to arrange for porters, servants, donkeys, and camp outfit! Now we had merely a visit to a store to get a basket of provisions for a few days, a little methylated spirit to boil water on the train. All the rest of the time could be devoted to sight-seeing.
And, nowadays, there is a good deal to see in Mombasa and Frere Town, as compared with a few years ago. Things are going ahead. There are good hotels, small public gardens, and a cathedral in memory of Bishops Hannington and Parker. The harbour presents a busy scene, and the railway harbour at the south side of Mombasa always provides something interesting. The Arab, Persian, and Indian stores well repay a visit, more especially if you have an unlimited supply of rupees to spare.
Missionarv work at Mombasa is hard and difficult, with the cosmopolitan population, chiefly professing Mohammedans and the descendants of the freed slaves landed there until recent years; but progress is being made, and developments in industrial and educational work now in progress will greatly help the other departments of the Mission. What the difficulties are, none but missionaries can possibly know, and much patient plodding yields but little visible result. Further inland the seed produces far better crops, just as with the natural soil, so with the spiritual, and great harvests are being gathered in some of the East African mission stations.
Saturday noon arrived, and we made our way to the tiny railway station, our luggage having gone there ahead of us. We had a strange collection — a medicine chest, camera, bags of personal necessaries, and baskets of tinned provisions, bread, milk, bottles of water, saucepans, kettles, spirit lamp, and table furniture—for we did not know at all how long the journey might take. We knew the train was advertised to do the journey of 584 miles by the following Tuesday morning; but that was not to say we should do it. Of course we had a good supply of pillows and rugs, as our nights must be spent on the train.
There are three passenger trains a week for a part of the distance, but only one doing the whole length. Ours was a specially heavy one, as we had quite twenty-five European passengers, besides two carriages of natives and Indians. In all, including the registered luggage, which filled two vans, we had ten vans and carriages, quite as much as the engine could draw, seeing that in the first 350 miles we ascend over 6,000 feet.
We had some illustrious passengers on the train. The wife of the late Mwanga, ex-king of Uganda, was returning from the Seychelles, together with her infant child and attendants. Hearing we were for Uganda, and knowing our names, she asked if we would take her in our care.
The chief transport officer gave us money for her, in the event of her needing more than she already had, and we looked after her right up to Kisumu.
The first half of the journey we accomplished in fine style on the permanent ballasted way; and the 328 miles to Nairobi was over in twenty-four hours, travelling by night and day.
Arrangements were made for a stop for dinner on Saturday night, for breakfast next morning, and lunch at Nairobi. We agreed to take meals at these stopping-places at 2s. 8d. per head. Such a large party of Europeans being a rarity, the dak bungalows were overwhelmed. We had to wait so long between the courses that we had time to get up an appetite between each. Many and various were the comments in English, French, Italian, and other languages as to the incompetency of the flurried native waiters and the more harassed Goa who superintended the work. Two meals of this nature satisfied most of us, and we afterwards provided our own food on the train.
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Market scene at Namirembe, Mengo.
Up to this point the scenery is very interesting, but the most noticeable feature is the vast quantities of game—antelope, zebra, buffalo, wildebeeste, ostrich, rhinos, and jackals. Lions, though not visible, abound. This part of the Protectorate of East Africa being a game preserve, the animals are as tame as cattle in England, and stand within ten or twenty yards of the train, the driver having to constantly whistle them off the track.
After Nairobi we made slower progress. For several miles the gradient was so steep that natives, decked in red earth and butter, goat-skins and iron ornaments, easily ran behind the train and caught it up, hanging on to the guard's van, just as boys do on four-wheelers at home. This part of the world advances but slowly, though Nairobi itself has a big European population, with highly respectable houses and stores.
A mission has been commenced at Kikuyu, some 340 miles from Mombasa, and has made very good progress. It has, however, a very uphill work in hand with Masai and Wakikuyu, who, though very intelligent, are yet very low down in the scale of humanity. They never wash, I believe, merely smearing on more fat and earth when the shine wears off, much the same as one varnishes a stove grate.
A few miles more brings us to the Kikuyu Escarpment, a quick drop of 500 feet, and then comes a welcome change. We are in Lakeland, and pass in succession Naivasha, Elmenteita, and Nakuru within a few hours, and each quite of a different character.
Here, again, game abounds, but not so near the railway. The Masai herds of cattle occupy their place on the vast plains.
Then comes the Mau. If one can imagine a combination of Chatsworth, Matlock, and Staines, with magnificent forest scenery ad lib., some idea may be gained of the Mau range of mountains.
I wish I could think living there on the equator would be as healthy as at the places mentioned ; but I believe it will be found far otherwise. Central Africa is not well suited to Europeans, unless they can have constant trips home.
As we rumble over very frail-looking iron bridges, one can readily see what a wonderful piece of engineering the railway has been, and how great were the difficulties to be overcome.
The latter part of the journey we travelled but slowly. Mau summit, the highest point on the line, we reached at 11 on Monday morning. This is 8,320 feet, and 496 miles on our way. We took till 9.30 on Tuesday morning to make the remainder of the 584 miles to Port Florence (Kisumu, or Ugowe Bay, as the place is often called). On Sunday and Monday nights we could not travel, as the line was not considered safe. This does not mean unsafe because of natives, although it is in the Nandi country, where there had recently been a rising, though not a serious one.
A curious and interesting sight was provided at each station by the Masai warriors enrolled as scouts and guards. Some had overcoats and rifles, but others merely their spears,shields, and swords, and no clothing whatever. To see their long spears decorated with a tiny Union Jack was certainly novel. We were greatly amused when they told us they were engaged to ‘piga the washenzi’ (‘piga’ means to fight, and ‘washenzi’ means savage or uncivilised natives, a term of reproach. The Masai themselves certainly deserve that title, if any tribe or nation does). At one station a quarrel between Wanandi and Masai had arisen, and four of the former had been killed just before our train arrived.
It was interesting to see the number of Wakamba and Wakikuyu employed on the railway on the higher lands far away from their homes. It is not at all easy to get these natives to work regularly, and still more difficult to get them to leave their homes to go to an unknown country.
Port Florence is situated at the head of a long narrow arm of the Lake Victoria (‘nyanza’ and lake mean the same thing), which should be called Kavirondo Bay, but has by many people been wrongly styled Ugowe Bay.
The great desire of travellers is to escape spending a night at Kisumu. If this should be unavoidable, the night is generally passed in the railway carriage; though there is a dak bungalow near the station, a very small place, with very limited accommodation. Mosquitos enjoy nights better than travellers, who get very little sleep.
The regulations state that ‘Passengers should fully understand that they must allow others to occupy the same room as themselves, according to the number of beds in it.’
‘Passengers availing themselves of the retiring-rooms must make arrangements for attendance by their own servants, and also provide their own bedding.’
‘All complaints should be entered in the Complaint Book kept for the purpose.’
At Port Florence a long jetty has been built, so that the trains can run out right alongside the railway steamer ‘Winifred,’ the largest boat so far launched on the lake.
What a relief to be able to step out of the train on to a commodious steamer 175 feet long, of 250 tons register, and 500 horse-power!
Leaving Port Florence at 2 p.m. on the Tuesday, and anchoring overnight just at the entrance to Kavirondo Bay, we steamed off at daybreak, and by 5 p.m. on Wednesday reached Entebe, the landing-place of Uganda, after fifteen hours’ steaming.
Steamers as large as the ‘Winifred’ go out farther to sea, and so miss the varied and charming scenery afforded by the islands which thickly stud the north of the lake. The deeper draught necessitates sailing in mid-channel, even when passing between islands, and much of the beauty is thus lost. The trip across the lake will probably disappoint many who have heard such glowing descriptions of it from other travellers. Seen from a near point of vantage in a dhow or canoe, which usually keep as near land as possible, the islands present an altogether different appearance; they are not very hilly, and the ‘Winifred’ is a little too far away to enable one to fully appreciate them. I need not pause to describe them, except to say that they vary from bare rocks and shingle-covered banks to grass-covered hills and tropical forests, no two being alike.
Entebe, where we landed, is a long neck of land running out into the lake, and has a decidedly pretty appearance as we approach from the lake.
The facilities for landing are a variable quantity, and we were delayed considerably in getting ashore, as the sometimes available steam-launch could not be used, the engineer having been sent elsewhere at the moment.
There is a jetty up to which smaller boats may come, but the draught of the ‘Winifred’ is too deep to allow of her doing so, even though she draws only six feet. So we landed in small parties in one of the ship’s boats, and our baggage followed in the other. As we did not cast anchor till after 5 p.m., and it is always dark here at 6.30, the sun going down at six all the year round, it was almost dark by the time we got ashore.
We found three C.M.S. men down at the jetty to meet us, together with some other European friends, and a number of our favourite boys who had come down from Mengo to welcome us back. They were pleased to see us, just as much so as their letters had given us to expect, and gave a hearty welcome to my wife too, who was much interested in seeing what her native friends were like.
We were up betimes next morning, anxious to complete our journey and reach a place we could call home.
To Mengo by the cart road is only twenty-two miles; yet it was perhaps the most tedious part of the journey, considering the distance. From Port Florence we had wired for two cycles and an animal, not knowing that natives are so civilised now that several of them have rickshas they would have lent us. The result was the arrival of a mule, with a note stating that if trotted it would fall down, as it was weak-kneed. The next result was that, of course, the cycles had to wait for the mule, so that instead of getting to Mengo before noon, it was 3 p.m. before we reached there.
We had receptions all along the route. At 10 a.m. we sat down on the roadside and made tea. At 12 noon we came across boys making tea at the roadside, sent by the ladies at Mengo. At 2 p.m. we met boys with a table spread, and a fire burning—again at the roadside—and tea all ready, with milk, biscuits (made in Germany), etc., and sent by Zakasiya Kisingire, the second Regent. He had already sent on a note, with a mule which could trot, for my wife to ride, and this had met us eight miles out.
By this time we had been met with notes of welcome from the Katikiro, Kago, another big chief, and messages from several others. Detachments of our teachers and friends had joined our procession, until by the time we reached Mengo we were quite a crowd. The Bishop came on his mule some five miles out to welcome us, and soon, as we got to the capital, the Regent, who had sent the tea, came out, together with Mika Sematimba and several others, whom we had to hug in turn, heartily congratulated us on the journey. The King too sent messengers to salute us.
We went to the ladies' house, where all the Europeans came as soon as they could get from classes. A few had already met us on the road, a mile out; others had been some distance at noon, and turned back, as we were so delayed.
Then more tea and more congratulations, and about five we were able to get away and go to our own house, and I introduced my wife to her abode.
It seemed scarcely possible that it was only August 27, and we were safely in Mengo; and yet it was only a month since we left London.
We thanked God most sincerely for such a prosperous voyage, and for the improved means of transport.
the end
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