MOMBASSA TO LION LAND n 



Massai who claimed the country having usually the better 

 of it. And rival caravans struggled for slaves and ivory. 

 Here, too, only a few years ago, an English adventurer, 

 named Dick, was with all his men wiped out by the Massai. 

 So far as is known, the tragedy came about in this way. 

 A Swahili sefari, coming back from a trading expedition, 

 and "feeling good" as they neared the end of the journey, 

 celebrated the homeward march by blowing their horns 

 and beating their drums. This unusual noise raised 

 pandemonium among the Massai herds, which were gath- 

 ered in great numbers in the neighbourhood. The Massai 

 say they sent messengers to tell the Swahili to stop the 

 racket, and to go quietly through the land. Whether the 

 Swahili received the order or whether they understood it 

 will never be known. In any case, they went noisily on, 

 and the Massai attacked and speared them to a man. 

 Dick, with a small sefari, happened to be close behind 

 the Swahili caravan, and for some reason or other, soon as 

 he heard of the slaughter, at once attacked the Massai. 

 The Massai seemed to have tried to avoid righting; but 

 Dick, a man of desperate courage and a good shot, opened 

 a deadly fire on them, and in a few minutes had killed 

 twenty. Then his rifle jammed, or some accident hap- 

 pened, and he fell, speared in the back. The Massai 

 declare he killed several with his clubbed rifle. His grave 

 is on the hill close by, and still the Massai call the place, 

 "The grave of the English lion" (simba ulya). Skulls 

 still thickly strew the kopje where he made his last stand. 



At 4.30 A. M. of a bitterly cold September morning, 

 we came to a stop at the little railroad station of Londiani 

 more than one hundred miles west of Nairobi. It was 

 pitch dark, and the hundred and ten men that composed 

 our motley array huddled miserably under their blankets 

 on the platform. A very unreliable railroad lamp here 



