194 THE RETURN MARCH part ii 



was best that the attack should be dehvered before we were 

 on the march. The interpreter, Ramathan, knelt before me, 

 kissed my hand, and begged and prayed that we would not go 

 on. Omari, however, was as angry as I was, and equally con- 

 vinced that with such a fickle treacherous tribe as the Kikuyu 

 the safest course was to put on an attitude of determined 

 indifference, and bluff our way through. As the old chief 

 Nathan Nyuki did not come, after we had waited about a 

 quarter of an hour for him, I gave the order to lift up the 

 loads and march. Our two guides protested on the ground 

 that they wanted to go home and get food. I promised 

 to supply them with everything necessary, and said they 

 must stay with us. We walked on to the ridge, above the old 

 lake basin beside which we had camped. We skirted some 

 dense jungle, which I declined to enter at any price, and crossed 

 the shambas. There were several furious discussions, con- 

 ducted with all the passion of an odium theologicuni, for it was 

 against the religion of the natives for us to pass through their 

 fields, and it was against mine to go through the shrub jungle. 

 I compensated the elder of the nearest village with ten strings 

 of beads, worth three strings a penny, to cover any damage we 

 might do to his crops. As this sacrifice appeased the native 

 conscience, the protests ceased. Two last efforts were made to 

 stop us. A message came upbraiding me for leaving without 

 bidding farewell to Nathan Nyuki, and saying that as he was 

 an old man he could not get up till late. The only reply was 

 the regret that Nathan Nyuki should be so drunk, and the 

 suggestion that next time a white man honoured the country 

 with his presence, the chief should go to bed in proper time. 

 The final attempt was equally ineffectual, though I was more 

 sorry to have to resist it. At one place on the path they had 

 collected as many of the lame and sick of the district as they 

 could hastily assemble. They begged me to cure them. Most 

 of the fifty invalids had bad ulcers, and to have dressed all 

 these would have taken a day, while a single dressing would 

 have done but little good. I therefore had to break another 

 of my chief rules, which was never to refuse medicine 

 while I had any to spare. This, however, was such a 

 manifest imposition that I declined to look at any of the 

 invalids. I was especially sorry not to be able to help some 



