142 EXCURSIONS FROM NJEMPS part ii 



I promised him full protection, and to let him return as soon 

 as we saw Doenyo Egeri (Mt, Kenya), and he could point out 

 to us the position of Ndoro. He refused to go, so I had sternly 

 to tell him that he had better return to Njemps Mkubwa. He 

 begged for food ; but I could only say that I had not enough 

 for my own men and had none to spare for him. With that 

 the shauri ended, and I went back to my tent knowing that the 

 pangs of hunger would be a more powerful argument than 

 anything I could say. Every now and then during the day 

 the man's piteous cry of " Nyama, nyama " (Meat, meat) rang 

 through the camp. He persisted in his refusal, however, till 

 the evening. Then, when the porters cooked their food, the 

 savoury odour of the roasted antelope meat was too much for 

 him ; he decided that the risk of death by a Masai spear was 

 less awful than the certainty of slow starvation. Terms were 

 easily settled. Ijwas to feed him, give him a supply of food for 

 the return journey, and leave ten rings of iron and brass rod with 

 the chief of Njemps as his payment. I offered to take him 

 back to Mombasa and pension him, but this he declined. He 

 signed articles by surrendering his bow and arrows, and then we 

 gave the poor fellow his food. He seized it like a ravenous 

 hyena, and nearly choked himself with it. We had to tear it 

 from him by main force, cut it up, and give it him in pieces. 

 For days afterwards the taste of food always drove him mad ; 

 at his meals one man had to hold him down, while another cut 

 up his meat and fed him like a child. Mwini Mharo, the head 

 Askari, was the most attentive to him. We were a stony-hearted 

 crew, but there was not one of us who was not touched by the 

 sight of the merry Mwini patiently soothing that wild, gaunt 

 idiot as he doled him out his food. In a few days he grew stronger 

 and became calmer ; then he used to sleep all day and stand all 

 night in the smoke of a fire beside my tent singing a doleful dirge, 

 and waving about a flap of leather to drive away the mosquitoes. 

 If he thus disturbed the mosquitoes as much as he did me, from 

 his point of view this performance was a success. 



Our relations with the coast-traders were of a very different 

 character from those with the guide. Omari at length returned, 

 but only brought 500 lbs. of food, which, with my store of 

 zebra meat, would last us only ten days. The Arab guide 

 had played us false. He had gone up under our protection, 



