CHAPTER XIX 



THE STRICKEN CARAVAN 



NOT long after this adventure the permanent way 

 reached the boundary of the Kapiti Plains, where a 

 station had to be built and where accordingly we 

 took up our headquarters for a week or two. A 

 few days after we had settled down in our new 

 camp, a great caravan of some four thousand men 

 arrived from the interior with luggage and loads of 

 food for a Sikh regiment which was on its way 

 down to the coast, after having been engaged in 

 suppressing the mutiny of the Sudanese in Uganda. 

 The majority of these porters were Basoga, but 

 there were also fair numbers of Baganda (i.e. people 

 of Uganda) and of the natives of Unyoro, and 

 various other tribes. Of course none of these wild 

 men of Central Africa had either seen or heard of a 

 railway in all their lives, and they consequently 

 displayed the liveliest curiosity in regard to it, 

 crowding round one of the engines which happened 



