72 ON THE UGANDA ROAD part ii 



We reached our guides' village, and picked up our burden of 

 provisions. I invited the natives to come with us for some 

 return presents, and then rushed down the path to camp. But 

 the storm broke upon us before we reached shelter ; two 

 minutes after the rain commenced we were wet to the skin. 



Shortly after my return to camp I had the unexpected 

 pleasure of a visit from Mr. George Wilson, a man well known 

 to all readers of Captain Lugard's Rise of our East African 

 Empire. He was then cutting a road to Kibwezi at the 

 expense of the late Sir William Mackinnon, and had struck 

 camp at Butchuma only the day before I arrived there. He 

 had wisely travelled by a route to the west of the mountain 

 group of Ndara, as he knew how troublesome the ford of the 

 Voi would be after the recent rains. I had thus passed him 

 on the road, and was afraid I should not meet him. I was 

 delighted to see him, for I hoped to be greatly reassured by him 

 as to the practicability of my plans. He was reported — and 

 with truth — to be a man of such patience, tact, and good 

 temper, that he is extremely successful in making friends with 

 the natives. In this his facility for languages stands him in 

 good stead, for it enables him to dispense with interpreters, and 

 to communicate with the natives directly. He had had, more- 

 over, great experience of the two tribes with which I was most 

 likely to come into conflict, the Kikuyu and the Masai. He 

 had lived for some time among the former at Dagoreti, and 

 was a great friend of Tereri, the head of the Naivasha Masai. 

 Unlike most men who have had much intercourse with the 

 Masai, he has great faith in their intelligence and faithfulness, 

 in addition to sharing the general admiration of their pluck and 

 social organisation. So enthusiastic is he about the Masai that 

 he is known in Mombasa as the " Masai faddist " — although a 

 raiding party of this tribe had once attacked and routed a 

 caravan of which Mr. Wilson was in command, and he only 

 escaped after keeping the enemy at bay for a few minutes, by 

 peppering them with buckshot from an eight -bore elephant 

 rifle. I therefore hoped to receive from Mr. Wilson valuable 

 advice from his knowledge of the people ; and also encourage- 

 ment as to the prospects of success, both on account of his friend- 

 ship with the natives, and because, as a rule, the nearer danger 

 is approached, the less it is reported to be. The advice I received, 



