August 23, 
1017 
LAND & WATER 
Campaigning in East Africa 
-fl'V 
By a Padre 
THE Wami Ki\er battle had been a terrible dis- 
appointment. The big capture which we had so 
nearly effected would- have been a long step towards 
ending the war. Now that the Germans had e.scaped 
and gone to swell the ranks of the force which we supposed 
was defending the line of the Central Railw^ay, all the work 
had to be done over again. We startedi^n'thd march, after 
two days' rest by the muddy Wami Kiverjin-anything but a 
jubilant frame of mind, nor did the rtftwiaUy pronounced 
warning that we were entering upon a. tract of waterless 
country serve to improve our spirits. 
The Central Railway is tlie greatest engineering achie\e- 
ment of the Germans in East Africa. It stretches across the 
entire- width of the colony, and links up Take Tanganyika 
with Dar-e.s- Salaam and the sea. The part that interested 
me at this time was the section running tlnough .Morogoro, 
and skirting the foot of the WugurunMountains. These 
mountains we could see distinctly from- our camp on the 
Wami, as a great sombre mass on the horizon. They looked 
bad enough on the land.scape, but on the map they looked 
even worse. For the map showed that Jrwwning mountain 
wall extended fifty or sixty miles to the souih in a tangled and 
confused welter uf heights ; the \ery. place fbr a successful 
defensive campaign. 
At \\ ami I lost my good horse Thady, and also my private 
bottle of chlorodynr. Thady simply disappeared. He was 
taken out in the morning to graze with the other ofiticers' 
horses, in care of one of the grooms. The other horses came 
back, but not Thady. My own groom, a singularly stupid-C'aju 
boy, was tearful, but could give me no consolation, though 
he said he had searched the camp from end to end. It was a 
large camp, and contained many cavalrymen whose mounts 
had died. Tiiady was not in good condition, but he had a 
great heart, and was good for anotli^f six weeks' work. 
Thady's loss reduced me at once, so to speak, from affluence 
to penury, for while I had him, I could use my nuile, Mary 
Abyssinia, as a baggage animal, and so be largely independent 
of the waggons. I came within an ace of losing Mary too, 
with my big saddle bags and blankets, for soon after we had 
started on the march (I was riding the machine-gun officer's 
horse for /the day) I saw to my horror and dismay Mary break 
away from the line, and dash off over the veldt in the direction. 
more or less, of her home in Abyssinia, dragging with herwitli 
little effort my insignificant groom. Fortunately, he stuck to 
her, and in the end she gave up the ill-timed effort for free- 
dom, and became once again her normal and placid self. 
It was the only unladylike conduct of which I ewr knew her 
to be guilty, except onCe, when she tried to kick the Colonel, 
absolutely the one and only person she ever did try to kick. 
A Long Trek 
We make a long trek that dav, travelling with full water- 
carts, two to each regiment. These would provide us with 
two water-bottles per man, and the ne.xt water was supposed 
to be anything up to twenty miles distant. The water in 
the carts was chlorinated, which gives it a yi^i;y peculiar 
flavour, very difficult to get away from- Wh,^i^ , jt^^a'tt',d in 
this way it was supposed to be safe drinkingj^i|iO|UgK,our 
own M.b. was rather sceptical on the point, ^iw carts, of 
course, were carefully guarded and under the care pf a water 
corporal, a most responsible and sometimes very disagreeable 
office. Earlier in the war, it had very frequently been tilled 
by clergymen of the Church of EnglamI, who combined this 
duty with the work of chaplain. They carried rifle and pack 
just as the rank and file, and their self-sacrificing and ,some- 
times heroic labours won them universal esteem and respect. 
My Anglican colleague, who^was attached to the other regi- 
ment of our miniature brigade, had at one time been a, water 
corporal, with the result that his influence with the men,Avhose 
trials and hardships he so, exactly shared, was qt<ite excep- 
tional. „,, , I,,, , ,1^,' .^ '^^ 
We marched that first day 'tilf well into the pigm,''and 
bivouacked in the dark. The load led tlirough a red country, 
and the clouds of vermilion coloured dust whicl^ enveloped 
the column produced in the strong sunlight a most striking 
and theatrical effect. It suggested a,, company of, .firemen 
fighting the flames, or some V\'itch's Kitchen scene Ifrqm a 
pantomime, when the red Unaelight is turned uppn'',it}e Smoke 
from the magic cauldron. ,.. ,. ,, j 
Talking about colour, German ■ ^st .\frica, so (ar as my 
experience goes, is a most disappointing country. ^I had 
come out full of cxTCCtations as to the glories ^'^ropical 
Scfenery, but up to the time of writing I can safely say I have 
scarcely seen a decent flower, while as to birds with theii* 
gorgeous plumage, the most common have been a little 
thing like a blue robin, and another, a big one, which seems 
a cross between a vulture and a carrion crow. The few palm 
trees we have struck have been nearly all decapitated, and 
looked like decrepit factory chimneys. The natives, I believe, 
make some sort of spirit from tlie leaves at the centre, and 
the cutting away of these leaves make the entire head of the 
tree rot away, and fall off. They say that at Neu Langen- 
burg at the. top of Lake Xyassa, the roses are quite wonderful, 
and as the country is about the size of all Eurojje minus Russia, 
it may well be there are more favoured spots than those I 
have visited. Over and over again I have fancied myself in 
England, so qujet and subdued was the colouring of the 
scene, and so entirely absent anything distinctly tropical 
Charged by Rhinos 
Next day we struck straight across country, making, our 
own road, and leaving the beaten track altogether. We had a 
little excitement at starting, for just as we were saddling up, 
a sudden shout of alarm all over the camp announced the 
approach of some sort of danger. It appeared almost at once 
in tjie form of three rhinos charging down upon us, and looking 
uncommonly ugly. Fortunately, instead of making right 
through the camp, as seemed to be their first intention, they 
swerved off to the left, and two of them were shot as they 
passed. Someone has described the German liast Campaign 
as " General Smuts's War in a Menagerie," a good phrase, 
and one that has more triith in it than might be supposed. 
This was .the only time we were troubled by rhinos, but lions 
were very often with us, and so were leopards, while elephants 
and giraffes knocked cUnvii our telegraph poles, and monkeys 
of all sorts jabbered at us out of the darkness whenever we 
encamped near a forest. The part of the country in which 
I am at present wiiting is particularly rich in lions ; you can 
hear them rf)aring (or more often grunting) almost any night, 
and we have had one or two Askaris actually carried away 
from the trenches. Only a night or two ago, four lions 
attacked our cattle kraal, carried off two oxen, stampeded the 
herd, and caused the men in the trenches to open fire under 
the impression that the Germans were making a night attack. 
Even in daytime no one is allowed to go beyond the confines 
t)f the camp unless armed and with a companion. 
This looks rather like a digression, but the fact is I am 
half afraid to begin the description of the day which followed 
the rhino visit. It was like no other day in the campaign, 
and it lives in memory as a red hot abomination, a thing full 
of a new and furious menace. Our way led across a plain, and 
we made our own road. It was quite easy to do so, as the plain 
was flat, and there were no rivers. It was covered with low 
scrub, and grass burnt to a rich yellow by the sun. The 
grass was the terror. If it had been soaked in paraffin it 
could scarcely have been more inflammable, and when it 
came in contact with anything in the way of fire-^^a cigarette 
end or a spark from a motor bicycle was quite enough — it 
simply exploded. But it was worse than an explosion, for it 
was liot local in its action, but spread in all directions with 
incredible rapidity. There is an expression " to burn like 
wildfire," and we learnt that day to know what it meant. 
Fortunately for us the gra^s was not very long, and, for- 
tunately, too. such trees as there were did not catch fire very 
readily, otherwise a most appalling disaster might ha\e 
occurred- For we had with us not only macliine gun and 
rifle ammunition, but two field batteries with their equipment 
of shells. 
We had' hardly started when the danger became apparent. 
We were the leading battalion of the Brigade that day, but 
other units were ahead of us, and soon we l)egan to see little 
clouds of smoke arising at intervals in the distance before us. 
And then suddenly we were in the very thick of it. As it 
seemed to me. miles of flame appeared to spring into existence 
on our left flank, and the whole column swerved suddenly 
away to the right. If the road had been an old one, it would 
probably have served as an effectual fire-break, but it 
was only a track beaten down by the vanguard of the column, 
and almost instantaneously the flames were over it, and 
had destroyed the new-laid telegraph wire. I'ortunately, a 
second track had been beaten by a column moving parallel 
to us, and behind this we took refuge, while the native troops 
.vl'ere set at work beating down the flames with branches. 
I suppose they succeeded, but I confess 1 did not wait to sec,' 
