HISTORY OF THE PROTECTORATE TERRITORIES 2J.5 



1895 the Imjjerial Government had resolved to construct that railway 

 from ^Mombasa to the Victoria Nyanza which was the indispensable 

 condition of the secure maintenance of British control over the regions 

 about the sources of the Nile. The preliminary railway surveys had alwavs 

 avoided the direct route to the lake through the Nandi countrv. partlv 

 because an exaggerated impression had been formed of the difficulties of 

 climbing the Mau Escarpment in this direction, and partly owing to the 

 truculence of the Xandi. a tribe who had shown themselves at all times very 

 ready to be hostile to Swaliili caravans and European expeditions. It is to be 



1S5. MWANGA, EX-KING OK VGAXDA ^THE FIGVKE OX THE KIGHT-HANP i^IOE>, IX 

 CHARGE OK AX VGAXDA XATIVE OKKICEK, AXDKKA 



feared. fro:n what we know of the way in which Swahili traders treat the 

 natives of countries they traverse, that the blame for this hostile attitude 

 on the part of the Nandi originivlly rests with the ZanziK^r and Mombasa 

 caravans, while in 1895 the lirst actual outbreaks of the Nandi against 

 Euro^teans were provoked by the aggivssions of the Scotch trader. Pick, 

 who subsequently lost his life at the hands of the Masai owing to >imilar 

 behaviour. However that may Iv. the Xandi carried their reprisals too far, 

 and an armed expedition ha*l to be sent ai:ainst them from the head- 

 quarters of the I'g-anda Protectorate — an expeiiition which edected very 

 little owing to the difficult nature of the coiuiti-y and the insufficiency of 

 soldiers. But the personal action of Mr. Jackson (^until i-ecently acting 



