A FIRE-MAKING COMPETITION 



We therefore tried to cross it, but found it impracticable. As 

 is so often the case with African rivers, they become larger instead 

 of smaller when traced towards their source. In the barren 

 gneiss desert of its lower course, this river loses so much water 

 by absorption in the sandy soil that, where we first met it, its 

 volume is probably less than a third of that of the point where 

 we tried to cross. Omari, Fundi, and I therefore went ahead to 

 search for a ford. Instead of this we found a party of Kikuyu, or 

 rather they found us, in a way that was not to our credit. They 

 saw us first, and hid in the bush in two parties. We walked 

 straight into the ambush before we saw them. It was gross 

 carelessness, and we felt as much ashamed as we were alarmed. 

 We held up tufts of grass as signs of friendship, and called out 

 " Moratta, moratta " (Friends). When they saw we were alone 

 and meant no mischief, they relaxed their bows, consented to a 

 shauri, and the leader came forward to shake hands. They were 

 a party of Kikuyu out hippopotamus-hunting, as all their crops 

 had been destroyed by the Masai. The great raid, the pre- 

 parations for which I had seen at Naivasha, had been only too 

 successful. An army of El-Moran had burst upon the district 

 of Igeti, and cleared it like a hurricane. The villages had been 

 burnt, the cattle seized, the crops destroyed, and all the people 

 massacred, except those who escaped to the woods and the Kapte 

 plains. While we were waiting for the porters, the leader of the 

 party told us the sickening story, his men sitting round sobbing, I 

 gave them some wire, and they guided us to a place where some 

 islands had been connected with both banks by some felled 

 treses. While the porters were crossing this, I shot a hippo- 

 potamus for the natives, and some birds for a small boy who 

 was trying in vain to kill them with a bow and arrow. I 

 further increased my reputation with these friendly Kikuyu 

 by challenging their best fire-maker to see who could make 

 fire most quickly with a fire-stick. By slipping the head of a 

 lucifer match into the hole in which the stick was twirled, I 

 won easily. 



When my men had crossed the river we marched south- 

 ward, and traversed the almost imperceptible divide between 

 the basins of the Tana and the Sabaki. Dusk found us at the 

 edge of the Athi gorge. Just after sunset we were charged by 

 a rhinoceros ; I fired, and the dull thud of the bullet and the 



