The foundation of British East Africa

THE FOUNDATION OF BRITISH
EAST AFRICA

I

HE FOUNDATION OF
BRITISH EAST AFRICA

By J. W. Gregory, D.Sc

PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY

OF MELBOURNE, AUTHOR OF " THE

GREAT RIFT VALLEY"

^

LONDON

HORACE MARSHALL & SON

TEMPLE HOUSE, E.C

1 901

Butler & Tanner,

The Selwood Printing Works,

Frome, and London.

Preface

BRITISH East Africa has a threefold history,
geographical, political and administrative,
dealing respectively with the story of its
exploration, the struggle for its possession and the
beginning of its commercial development. These three
histories relate to such different subjects that it is not
easy to combine them into a connected story ; but I
have tried to tell as much of each as is necessary to
explain the adventurous history of British East Africa
from the voyages of the ancient merchants and Arab
traders to the establishment of British rule.

Among the modern expeditions I have only de-
scribed those which have had an important influence
on the founding of British East Africa. The story of
the expeditions which mapped the rivers, explored the
branch roads, filled in the topographical details and
determined the main features in the natural history and
geology of the country, as well as of the journeys of

1CSCCG3 *

vi PREFACE

the sportsmen who have opened up new ground, be-
longs to the geographical history of East Africa. It will
record the discoveries of, amongst others, Ainsworth,
Ansorge, Austin, Chanler, Delamere, Dundas, Hall,
Hobley, von Hohnel, Mackinder, Moore, Neumann,
Pigott, Scott-ElHot, Donaldson Smith, Eric Smith,
Captain Smith, and the important contributions of the
missionaries to our knowledge of the geography and
ethnography.

I have however included a sketch of the early history
of British East Africa ; for it was the work of the
classical traders whose stories threw over the country
the glamour of myth and mystery, and of the mediaeval
Portuguese travellers who showed its commercial value
to Europe as a station on the route to India, that gave
the country its fascination to the modern missionaries
and geographical pioneers ; and in turn it was their
account of the pathos of native life and the horrors
of the slave trade which inspired the political tra-
vellers whose work led to the establishment of British
rule.

I have tried to tell the principal events in the three
chief stages in the history of the country closing with
the appointment in 1899 of Sir Harry Johnston as
Commissioner of Uganda. From his work in Uganda
great things were expected, for it is generally under-

PREFACE vii

stood that he was sent out primarily as an African
expert to advise as to the future administration of the
country. This administration has been marked by some
important reforms, but the test of his work will be his
final report as to the requirements and resources of the
country.

Since the manuscript was concluded, news of the
mutiny in Somaliland and the deplorable death of
Mr. Jenner, whose tact and integrity as chief judge
at Mombasa did so much to establish native faith in
British justice, and the rebellion in Nandi show that
British East Africa has not yet secured the peace which
is essential to that growth of population which is the
country's greatest need.

These wars are most regrettable from financial as
well as other considerations. The government of British
East Africa will for some years inevitably be very
costly. A cheap administration at the present stage
must come to evil. Five millions of pounds are being
spent on the Uganda railway, which will assuredly
prove a bad investment if money for the development
of the country be unwisely stinted. A more generous
grant for the investigation of the economic resources of
the country is especially necessary.

The present heavy expenditure in South Africa may
lead to a reduction in the subsidy to British East

viii PREFACE

Africa ; but no one who knows the country will doubt
that undue economy now will cost dearly in the end_
The administration of the adjoining state of German
East Africa in many respects has set an example that
might be copied with advantage.

As the book is popular in its scope I have not bur-
dened it with references. The principal literature up
to 1896 is referred to in my Great Rift Valley \ after
that date there is a complete record in the monthly
summaries of literature by Dr. H. R. Mill and Mr.
Heawood in the Geographical Journal. A catalogue of
the blue books and other official publications is given
in Messrs. P. S. King & Son's annual lists.

In conclusion I have to express my thanks to Mrs.
Chaplain, who owing to my absence from England has
kindly seen the book through the press ; also to my
colleague, Prof. Tucker, for his translation of the
passage on the East Coast of Africa in the Periplus^
and for some suggestive notes thereon.

J. W. Gregory.

University^ Melbourne.
May, 1 90 1.

Contents

Chapter I page

THE GEOGRAPHY OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA . . 3

Chapter II
THE NATIVES OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA ... 17

Chapter III

THE DAWN OF EAST AFRICAN GEOGRAPHY . . 27
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III : ACCOUNT OF THE EAST
AFRICAN COAST IN "THE PERIPLUS OF THE
RED SEA," TRANSLATED BY PROFESSOR TUCKER 49

Chapter IV

THE MOMBASA MISSIONS $2

Chapter V

THE QUEST FOR THE NILE SOURCES .... 71

Chapter VI

THE UGANDA ROAD AND THE TRAVERSE OF MASAI-
LAND 81

X CONTENTS

PAGE

Chapter VII
STANLEY AND THE UGANDA MISSION . . . .103

Chapter VIII

THE BRITISH EAST AFRICA COMPANY AND THE

STRUGGLE FOR WITU 123

Chapter IX
THE MAZRUI REBELLION AND EMIGRATION . . 144

Chapter X

HOW THE MISSIONARIES RETURNED TO UGANDA . 162

Chapter XI
HOW LUGARD SAVED UGANDA 174

Chapter XII

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE. . . .199

Chapter XIII
THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA . . .237

List of Illustrations

SOMALI TRIBESMEN Frontispiece

THE BAOBAB TREE Facing p. 8

IVORY TRADERS IN MASAI DRESS ... ,,20

DR. LUDWIG KRAPF „ 54

MASAI WARRIORS ,,82

HENRY M. STANLEY, AT THE TIME OF HIS

FIRST EXPLORATIONS IN AFRICA . . „ 106

A GROUP OF UGANDA NATIVES ... ,,112

ZANZIBAR NATIVES: GATHERING CLOVES . ,, 128

MOMBASA ,,146

FORT MOMBASA „ 160

GENERAL F. D. LUGARD ,,176

THE UGANDA RAILWAY: MAKUPA BRIDGE. „ 200
THE UGANDA RAILWAY : SCENERY NEAR

VOI STATION ,,224

THE UGANDA RAILWAY : CLEARING FOR

MOMBASA STATION ,,240

THE UGANDA RAILWAY : A STEEP GRADIENT „ 248

MAPS
SANSON D' ABBEVILLE'S MAP OF EQUATORIAL

AFRICA ,48

MAP OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA . . At end of volume

BOOK I

Chapter I
HE GEOGRAPHY OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA

"Geography is three-fourths of war." — Von Moltke.

THE British territories on the mainland of
Eastern Equatorial Africa include about half
a million square miles of country, extending
from the shore of the Indian Ocean to the basin of the
Nile. This vast area, more than four times the size of
England and Wales, was acquired for the Empire by a
company of merchants and philanthropists, known as
the British East African Association, Their dominions
were called British East Africa, a name still used in its
original sense by geographers, though politicians now
restrict it to a part of the eastern half of that area.

The inland boundaries of British East Africa, using
the name in its geographical sense, are either artificial
or uncertain. On the south, the British territories are
separated from German East Africa by a line drawn
from the coast at the port of Wanga, in a north-westerly
direction, to the shore of the Victoria Nyanza ; whence

4 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

the boundary runs westward, along the first parallel of
south latitude, till it reaches the Congo Free State.
Except for a bend which gives Kilima Njaro, the highest
of African mountains, to Germany, the southern frontier
has been drawn straight across the country with diplo-
matic indifference to geographical features.

The north-eastern frontier is formed by the Juba,
which makes a natural boundary up to the confluence
of its chief head streams ; but beyond that point it is
perhaps uncertain which of the branches is the Juba of
the diplomatist.

The northern boundary is the least definite, for Menelik,
the " Emperor of Ethiopia," claims dominion over large
portions of the lowlands to the south and west of the
Abyssinian plateau, although they are included within
the British sphere.

West of Abyssinia, British East Africa meets the old
Equatorial provinces of Egypt, now under the joint pro-
tection of England and Egypt ; but where the English
sphere ends and the Anglo-Egyptian condominion begins
is, as yet, a little vague.

So far as the limits can at present be drawn, British
East Africa extends in length for some eight hundred
and forty miles from south-east to north-west, with an
average width of five hundred and sixty miles. It thus
includes about five hundred thousand square miles.
Politically, the country is divided into three parts — the
Uganda Protectorate, which includes as much of the

GEOGRAPHY OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 5

Nile Basin and the Great Rift Valley as falls within the
British sphere ; the British East Africa Protectorate,
which extends from the eastern wall of the Great Rift
Valley to a line ten miles west of the Indian Ocean
shore ; and the Zanzibar Protectorate, which includes
the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, and a ten-mile belt
along the coast. Geographically and historically, how-
ever, the three divisions on the mainland are one, and
their permanent political separation is improbable.

Some knowledge of the physical geography of
British East Africa is necessary in order to understand
its recent history, for peculiar geographical conditions
have rendered its administration especially difficult and
interesting. The British colonisation of America and
Australia began with the establishment of stations on
the coast, whence settlements crept backward, step by
step, up the chief river valleys, or along the main trade
routes to the interior. The British conquest of India
followed essentially the same plan. In British East
Africa, on the contrary, the Company, which had
undertaken the administration of the country, aban-
doned the traditional British policy ; it had no sooner
occupied the coast towns than it advanced inland, and
spent most of its energies and capital in a struggle for
the remotest province in its territories, only concerning
itself with the more easily ruled, intermediate country,
in so far as it was necessary for the maintenance of com-
munications with its garrison in Uganda.

6 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Geographical explorers have followed the same system.
The " back blocks " of British East Africa have been
traversed in all directions and roughly surveyed, while
there are areas a day's march from the coast, which,
geographically, are quite unknown.

The necessity for the adventurous and expensive
plunge into the heart of Africa, which ruined the British
East African Company, can only be understood through
a consideration of the physical structure of the country.

Geographically, British East Africa consists of seven
belts of country, which run approximately parallel to the
coast. The characters of each belt are strikingly unlike.
The first belt consists of the coast plain and the off-lying
islands ; the second belt is the Nyika, a barren plateau
stretching inland beyond the coast plain for a width of
from seventy to two hundred miles ; next come the vol-
canic plains of Masai-land, which lie between the Nyika
and the eastern wall of the Erythrean or Great Rift
Valley ; then follows the fourth belt, the Great Rift
Valley itself, bounded on the west by the scarp of the
Mau-Kamasia plateau. This plateau, which forms the
fifth belt, descends slowly to the sixth belt, the basin of
the Victoria Nyanza. Lastly, we come to the Rift
Valley of the Nile, the westernmost belt of British East
Africa.

. The first of these parallel belts with which the traveller
becomes acquainted is that of the coastal plains ; this belt,
perhaps, appears the most interesting and promising dis-

GEOGRAPHY OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 7

trict to a visitor from the temperate zone. The soil is rich,
the rainfall, though irregular, is generally ample, and
most of this belt, thanks to its damp, warm climate,
could be tilled to a garden, growing all the fruits of the
tropics, and supporting a dense population. The
scenery, moreover, especially if seen from a dhow sailing
along the coast, is pleasing and varied. Surf-beaten
coral reefs occur at intervals along the shore, and behind
the breakers is a shore passage, where boats lie in peace,
safe from the heavy swell that rolls in from the Indian
Ocean. Beyond the boat channel lies a beach of white,
glistening, coral sand, backed here by yellow, palm-clad
sandhills, and there by banks of soft blue mud, passing
into green forests of mangrove and jungles of screw
pines ; while elsewhere, straight above the white broken
waters of the reef belt, stand grey cliffs of raised coral
rock, weathered into caves and crags, and capped by a
bright red soil.

Beyond the cliffs, and along the valleys, there are
palm groves, fruit orchards, rice fields, banana planta-
tions, well-tilled fields of yams, maize, earth-nuts and
beans ; and, nestling in the hollows, are villages of oblong
huts made of interlaced palm leaves or of wattle and
daub. Between the cultivated areas are wide tracts of
acacia scrub, and forests of branching palms, and of
native teak, ebony, and other timber trees ; these forests
are generally rendered almost impenetrable by vines
and creepers and thick tropical undergrowth.

8 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Westward, the belt of the coast plain and the low
coast hills ends at the foot of a steep slope, which
looks like one side of a mountain range ; but, on
ascent, it proves to be the eastern scarp of the great
East African plateau. This hill face is well seen from
Mombasa, and the Uganda Railway climbs it immedi-
ately after reaching the mainland ; but in other parts
of the British sphere the coastal belt is wider, and
the scarp is farther inland ; while, where it has been
breached by the rivers, there is a long gradual ascent
into the interior by a valley, instead of by one steep,
short climb.

From the edge of this slope a vast undulating plain
extends, as far as the eye can follow it, into the interior.
Most of the plain is a turfless, sandy waste, waterless
except in the rainy season.

This desert belt, which is known as the Nyika, has
generally left a very unpleasing impression on the
minds of travellers who have marched across it at the
end of the dry season. It is described by Mr. Scott-
Elliot, who looked upon it with the interest of a bota-
nical specialist, as " a most curious district. Gnarled
and twisted acacias of all sorts and sizes, usually with
bright, white bark and a very thin and naked appear-
ance, cover the whole country. Amongst these one
finds the flat-topped acacia, and curious trees of
euphorbia. The grasses and sedges in this part grow
in little tufts, at some distance from one another, leav-

i

, ^dy

GEOGRAPHY OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 9

ing the general tint of the landscape that of the soil
itself. No sward or turf is formed, and, except imme-
diately after the rains, all these grasses are dead, dry
and withered up. Most of the plants are either thorny
or fleshy, as is usual in all desert countries." ^

At the end of the rainy season the Nyika may look
green and fertile, but, as soon as the rains cease, the
pitiless tropical sun scorches the vegetation, sucks up
the rain pools, and turns the rush-bordered stream
courses into sandy nullahs. For a while, a sheet of
cabbage-like Stratiotis and the broad-leaved lotus pro-
tects the swamps, which remain as oases in the desert ;
but, under the hot blast from the surrounding plains,
the leaves wither, and, thus uncovered, the water is
soon evaporated by the envious sun ; a layer of mud,
soon as dry as a sun-baked brick, covers the floor of
the water holes, and the oasis is merged in the dreary,
desert waste.

This belt of Nyika extends right across British East
Africa from north to south, broken only by the valleys
of the Sabaki, Tana and Juba rivers. Along the Tana
the soil is so rich and deep, that the forest belt beside
the river is impenetrable, except where native paths or
game tracks have bored a passage through the under-
growth.

Though the Nyika has been described as a plain, its

1 G. F. Scott-Elliot, A Naturalist in Mid-Africa.

10 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

surface is by no means level, for the belt is composed
of rocks of great antiquity, with bands of very unequal
hardness. The action of stream, rain and wind-borne
sand has cut so deeply into the Nyika, that its surface
is always undulating, and it is at intervals broken by
steep, hog's-back ridges and boulder-strewn hills. The
highest of these hills are the remnants of the oldest
mountain range in British East Africa ; they occur as
a series of ridges (mostly near the meridian of 38° E.
long.), and they rise to the height of from 5,000 to 7,000
feet above the sea.

To the west of the Nyika are the broad lava plains of
Kapti, the Athi and Laikipia. This belt is probably the
most hopeful region in British East Africa, for the soil
is fertile and the climate healthy ; the days are often
hot, but the nights are always cool, and Europeans can
live and labour in this district with less discomfort
and ill-health than in any other part of Equatorial
Africa. When the grass of these plains is low in the
dry season, the soft, short turf, the dome-shaped hills
and the well-rounded, streamless valleys give the coun-
try the aspect of some of our English chalk downs ;
and, when timbered, the country is beautifully park-
like. The volcanic belt, however, includes some rugged
hill country, clad in dense forests, wherein are found
the great food plantations of the Kikuyu, To this
zone also belong the great volcanic piles of Kenya
and Settima.

GEOGRAPHY OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA ii

The lava plains are abruptly terminated by the Great
Rift Valley, the most remarkable feature in the geo-
graphy of Eastern Africa. This valley has been
formed by the subsidence of the block of material
that once filled it. At one time the surface of the
volcanic plains to the east of the Rift Valley were
continuous with the similar plains to the west. Paral-
lel cracks, hundreds of miles in length, broke across the
rocks ; the block of material between these cracks sank,
leaving walls, in places, so precipitous that the Uganda
Railway has had temporarily to use a cable-worked
funicular railway for the descent into the valley from
the Kikuyu plateau. The walls of the valley, however,
are not always precipitous. The lines along which the
subsidence occurred cut across ridges, valleys and basins ;
and the character of the scarps that now bound the
valley varies with the structure of the country on either
side of the Rift Valley.

In British East Africa there are two main rift

I valleys. The eastern, known as the Erythrean, or

j Great Rift Valley, extends through East Africa from the

! German frontier to Abyssinia ; it bends eastward round

the Abyssinian plateau, and reaches the southern end

of the Red Sea ; it is then continued northward by the

Red Sea and Gulf of Akaba to the valley, which leads

over the Arabah depression to the Dead Sea and

Jordan Valley.

Beyond the western wall of the Great Rift Valley the

12 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

country slopes gradually to the depression, the lowest
part of which is occupied by the Victoria Nyanza.
The floor of the Nyanza basin is fairly level, as a rule,
but it is intersected by numberless broad, shallow, flat-
floored valleys.

"The whole of Uganda, Usoga, and much of
Karagwe," says Scott-Elliot, " consists of an infinity of
hills and ridges 4,110 feet, on an average, above the sea.
Their flat valleys are usually occupied by swamp rivers,
often half a mile wide. These curve and twist about in
an extraordinary fashion, and have numerous minor
swamps connected with them. It is thus immediately
obvious that railways are impossible, and roads ex-
tremely difficult. In a course of twenty miles we may
have to cross eight swamps from a quarter to three-
quarters of a mile wide, and mount and descend twelve
hills each 300 feet high and also steep."

These swampy valleys are lined with rich, deep soil,
and the country is at a lower level than most of the
volcanic country to the east. Lake Naivasha, in the
Rift Valley, is 6,230 feet above the sea, but the level of
the Nyanza is only 3,820 feet. Hence Uganda and the
countries around the Victoria Nyanza have a warmer
climate, and are more typically tropical in their cha-
racters, than the high plateaux that separate them from
the fertile coast lands.

West of the Nyanza basin is the second and western
Rift Valley — that of the Nile. It lies between the high

li

GEOGRAPHY OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 13

plateau of the Congo Free State to the west, and the
snow-clad Ruwenzori and the plateau of Unyoro to the
east. It is continued southward to Tanganyika, and
northward down the valley of the Nile. Its formation
was no doubt similar to that of the Erythrean Rift
Valley, and Stanley's bold suggestion regarding the
event has been justified by the evidence of later travel-
lers. " Time was when Ruwenzori did not exist. It was
grassy upland, extending from Unyoro to the Balegga
plateau." ^ Then came the upheaval at a remote period.
" Ruwenzori was raised to the clouds, and a yawning
abyss 250 miles long and 30 miles broad lay south-west
and north-east."

The Nilotic Rift Valley repeats the characters of the
Erythrean Rift Valley, and it is occupied by long,
narrow, fiord-like lakes, of a very different aspect from
the round lakes, with low, shelving shores, of the Victoria
Nyanza type.

The contrast between the two lake types is well
expressed by the late Major Thruston :

" The ordinary conception of a lake under the Equator
is of a sheet of water with swampy shores, infested by
myriads of mosquitoes, surrounded by dense tropical
forest, with rank undergrowth and a tangled mass of
creepers. Such would be a fairly correct description of
Lake Victoria. Lake Albert is very different. Its

^ The country to the west of the Albert Nyanza.

14 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

eastern shore is bounded by a steep and sometimes
precipitous bank from r.cxx) to 1,500 feet in height, the
edge of the water being fringed by a plain varying from
a few feet to a mile in breadth, . . . The western
shore is formed by a chain of lofty mountains, the
highest peaks of which must be at least 8,000 feet above!
the level of the lake. The sides of the mountains arei
like walls rising out of the water. . . , The whole]
scene resembles a fiord in Norway."

Such, then, in broad outline, is the physical structure
of British East Africa. It is a land of striking con-
trasts, both in climate and in geographical characters.
Although lying across the Equator, there are two
mountains, Kenya and Ruwenzori, that are always
snow-capped, and the volcanic plateaux bear many
plants whose affinities are with those of the Mediterra-
nean basin. Again, the country exhibits the action of
both ice and fire : it has a system of glaciers ; it has
also innumerable old volcanoes. These last occur both
as weathered cones in the last stages of decay, and as
lines of well-preserved craters, where the old volcanic
fires are not yet wholly extinct. It is a land, moreover,
of lakes and deserts. In the western basin is the
second largest freshwater lake in the world, and in the
Rift Valleys are fiord-like lakes, one of which. Lake
Rudolf, is 170 miles in length ; while in contrast to these
vast existing lakes there are barren tracts of

GEOGRAPHY OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 15

" The shining plain that is said to be
The dried-up bed of a tormer sea,
Where the air, so dry, and so clear and bright.
Reflects the sun with a wondrous light.
And out in the dim horizon makes
The deep blue gleam of the phantom lakes."

The essential fact, then, in the economic geography
of British East Africa, is its remarkable diversity. It
contains all sorts of climate and all varieties of soils ;
we find the fertile, fever-stricken belt of the coastlands ;
the broad, undulating, arid waste of the Nyika ; the
high, bracing, turf-clad plains of Masai-land ; and the
deep, wind-swept trough of the Great Rift Valley ; as
well as the warm, rich lowlands of the Nyanza basin
and the valley of the Upper Nile, where palms flourish,
and both vegetation and climate have a tropical
character.

The temperate character of the plateau country
renders it more suitable for European settlement than
the low-lying zones on either side ; but so long as the
highlands remain sparsely inhabited, they will be of
less commercial value than the more densely populated
and richer country of Uganda. Hence the British
East Africa Company was only adapting its policy to
the natural conditions of the country when it devoted
its best energies to the occupation of the well-populated
lowlands of the interior, and to the establishment of a
direct connection between them and the coast towns.
The British Government has been forced to follow the

i6 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

same plan, and, at the cost of many millions, is building
a railway from Mombasa to the Victoria Nyanza ; yet
both British administrations are only following the
example of the Arab traders, who were the pioneers in
the economic development of Eastern Africa.

Chapter II
THE NATIVES OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA

" But no ! they rubb'd through yesterday
In their hereditary way,
And they will rub through, if they can,
To-morrow on the selfsame plan,
Till death arrive to supersede.
For them, vicissitude and need."

— Matthew Arnold.

SOME acquaintance with the races, as well as with
the geography, of British East Africa is neces-
sary for a correct understanding of the history
of the country. The tribes that live there belong to
several distinct race groups. Some deplorable inci-
dents in the recent history of the protectorate would
probably never have occurred had due allowance been
made for the fundamental differences in character
between members of the various races.

The population, in the main, consists of negroes.
They belong to that section of the negro race known as
the Bantu, which occupies most of Africa, south of a
line from the Cameroons on the west coast to the

17 C

i8 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

mouth of the Juba on the east coast. The typical
Bantu tribes of British East Africa are the Wa-nyika,
with their allies the Wa-duruma and Wa-giriama, who
inhabit the eastern part of the Nyika and the southern
part of the coastal belt ; the Wa-taita, who live in the
Taita mountains in the south-western part of the Nyika,
beginning some eighty-five miles west from Mombasa ;
the Wa-kamba, who occupy the hilly country in the
basin of the River Athi, along the western boundary of
the Nyika ; and the Wa-pokomo, who dwell on the
banks of the lower Tana, from the edge of the plateau
country at Hameye to the sea.

The Bantu of British East Africa are, as a rule,
peaceful and industrious agriculturists. The Wa-kamba
are the bravest, the most enterprising, and the most
intelligent ; while the Wa-pokomo are probably the most
industrious, as they are certainly the most timid, of the
Bantu tribes.

The Bantu tribes are pagans, and have so far yielded
unsatisfactory returns to missionary enterprise. Mis-
sions have been established for half a century among
the Wa-nyika, with meagre results. The Scottish
Industrial Mission to the Kikumbuliu section of the
Wa-kamba has been removed, after a few years' work, to
a more hopeful clan ; but, according to Thruston, even the
best of the Wa-kamba have decided that " they will have
nothing to say to the Gospel, which they consider a
most improbable story."

NATIVES OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 19

The Bantu section of the negro race is also repre-
sented by some hybrid tribes, formed by the inter-
marriage of foreign immigrants with the primitive
Bantu stock.

Of these mixed races the most important is that of the
SuahiH, whose language, Ki-suahili, is the lingua franca
of East Africa. The Suahili live along the coast lands
and in the islands of Pemba and Zanzibar. The name
is derived from Suahil, a coast, and the race has been
formed by the intermarriage of Arab, Persian and
Beluchi traders, with the Bantu of the coast lands, or
with members of the inland tribes, who have been
taken to the coast as slaves. The better-class Suahili
live in the eastern ports, and they conduct most of the
trade with the interior. Many East Africans, who are
called Arabs, are really Suahili. Frequent reference
will be made in subsequent chapters to Arab traders
and Arab caravans, but it must be understood that the
name is used conventionally, and is not anthropolo-
gically correct. Tippu Tib is a typical Suahili ; his
mother was a Bantu slave, his father a half-caste Arab.
But Tippu is usually called an Arab, in accordance
with the East African use of the word, as the name of
a caste, rather than of a race.

The Wa-ganda are another tribe with a Bantu basis
altered and improved by intermixture with people who
do not belong to the negro race. The primitive Bantu
of Uganda were conquered by the Wa-huma, a Hamitic

20 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

tribe allied to the Galla and to some of the Abyssinians.
Some remnants of pure Wa-huma still survive in the
Uganda Protectorate. That they are not negroes was
recognised by the first travellers in Uganda. " The
Wa-huma," says Stanley, " are true descendants of the
Semitic ' tribes or communities, which emigrated from
Asia across the Red Sea, and settled on the coast, and
in the uplands of Abyssinia, once known as Ethiopia."

It is to this foreign intermixture that the Wa-ganda
owe their political importance and personal intelligence.

Another type of the negro race is represented by the
Kikuyu, a tribe which lives in a belt of forest country
extending from the southern slopes of Kenya to the
edge of the Great Rift Valley. The Kikuyu differ
from the Bantu in many respects, and appear to be
allied to the Niamniam of the Congo Free State rather
than to any other tribe in East Africa. They may be
the offspring of intermarriage between the Bantu
and the Nilotic races.

The Nilotic group is represented by the Masai, a race
of pastoral, warlike nomads, who roam over the grazing
plains of the volcanic belt and of the Rift Valley.
They are allied to the negroes of the Nile Valley, and
must have invaded British East Africa from the north
and north-west. The Masai are brave and warlike, and
the whole social organization of the tribe is adapted for

' This may have been a lapsus calami for Hamitic.

. >^.'K^-U-»/i%pilmm

NATIVES OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 21

the training of warriors, who undertake cattle-raiding
expeditions against their neighbours.

The Masai had a wide reputation for ferocity, blood-
thirstiness, and fickleness, and Kipling's " Some take
their tucker with tigers, and some with the giddy Masai"
illustrates the character they once enjoyed. Before
British East Africa fell under British influence the
Masai were a scourge to the whole country, and they
prevented much of the best land from being cultivated.
Of the Bantu tribes only the Wakamba could hold
their own against the Masai ; and even they had to leave
untilled much of the best land in their country, for they
could not protect exposed portions.

As late as 1889 the Masai raided in sight of Mom-
basa ; they frequently quarrelled with Arab caravans,
which they annihilated ; they have killed several Euro-
peans during the last few years, and in 1894 massacred
a Government caravan of over 1,000 porters. Cattle
disease, however, has now broken their power and re-
duced their numbers, and they are not likely to give
serious trouble to the British Administration ; but their
military system and power to mass rendered them, at
one time, more dangerous than any other tribe in British
East Africa.

The Nilotic race is also represented among the people
of Kavirondo, whose most striking characteristic is their
absolute nudity. But, as is often the case in Africa,
nudity is accompanied by morality ; some of their fully-

22 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

clad neighbours are far less moral than these naked
natives of Kavirondo. Hobley's researches show that
the Wa-kavirondo include a mixture of races, but the
main basis of population appears to be the Nilotic negro.
Another tribe of the same race are the Nyempsians, the
best British East African representative of the peoples
called Wakwafi ; these tribes have been regarded as de-
generate Masai, who had lost their cattle and taken to
agricultural pursuits. But, according to evidence col-
lected by New, the first Englishman to study them,
these Wakwafi are a distinct race, who have been
crushed and dispossessed by the Masai invasion. This
view is the more probable.

The Hamitic race is represented in British East Africa
by the Galla. One section of this tribe lives along the
Tana Valley, and in the plains between that river and
the Sabaki. Early in the nineteenth century the Galla
were of greater importance than at present, and they
ruled the country from the Juba to Mombasa. They
then gained a great reputation for cruelty and ferocity.
Boteler, who surveyed the eastern coast in 1 822-1 826,
tells us that " the Gallah have no houses, but wander in
the woods in the wildest state. Professed enemies to
every native and tribe around them, they hunt and are
hunted, committing indiscriminate slaughter on unresist-
ing multitudes one day, and becoming the victims of
like treatment from a superior force of their enemies on
the ne.xt.'

NATIVES OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 23

But at present the power of the Galla is insignificant,
and this interesting tribe, including the most intellectual
of the East African natives, is of little political import-
ance. Their allies, the Randile, living in the country
east of Lake Rudolf, are, however, still numerous and
prosperous, having great herds of camels and cattle.

The last element in the population of British East
Africa is a survival of the aboriginal pygmy. This race
is represented on the western edge of the country by
true pure-bred pygmies, who have been studied by Stiihl-
mann. To the east of the Rift Valley there is a dwarf
tribe of historic interest, as it supplied the first modern
confirmation of the classical and mediaeval reports of the
existence of pygmies in Central Africa, This tribe, how-
ever, has been much altered by negro intermixture, so
that its members are only half-castes. The tribe was
first reported from Abyssinia under the name of the
Doko. The earliest detailed account of them was pub-
lished by Sir. W. C. Harris, but it was apparently written
by Krapf ^ Subsequently rumours of the existence of a

• In The Great Rift Valley^ p. 327, I regret to have done an
injustice to Krapf, by accusing him of plagiarism from Harris.
The two men published a detailed account of the Doko in practi-
cally identical language. Harris's account appeared in 1844 and
Krapf 's in i860. I therefore concluded that Krapf had copied
from Harris ; but Krapf elsewhere declares that, while in Abyssinia,
he lent his note books to Harris, who published long extracts from
them without acknowledgment. Krapf felt at liberty to reprint
his notes, without reference to their prior publication by Harris ;

24 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

southern section of the tribe, mentioned as the Wa-
berikimo, were reported from Mombasa by Boteler and
Rigby. Members of the northern tribe, or Doko, have
been seen by Dr. Donaldson Smith, while the southern
tribe has been described by the author.

he thereby laid himself open to a charge of plagiarism, which I
gladly now withdraw.

BOOK II

THE GEOGRAPHICAL PIONEERS

"We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town ;

We yearned beyond the sky-line, where the strange roads go

down."

— Kipling.

Chapter III
THE DAWN OF EAST AFRICAN GEOGRAPHY

" Far hence, upon the Mountains of the Moon,
Is my abode ; where heaven and nature smile,
And strew with flowers the secret bed of Nile."

— Dryden.

THE modern period in the geography of Equa-
torial Africa began with Bruce's Travels in
Abyssinia^ and the foundation of the African
Association, — the parent of the Royal Geographical
Society. But long before the time of Bruce and Park,
Eastern Africa had been explored and exploited by
travellers, who had discovered most of the leading facts
in the geography of Equatorial Africa. As is shown by
Sanson d' Abbeville's map of Equatorial Africa published
in 1635, it was known early in the seventeenth century
that the Congo rose from Lake Zaire or Tanganyika,
and that the Nile sprang from a series of lakes. Indeed,
the outline of " Zaflan Lacus," the largest of these lakes,
is more correctly represented in Sanson's map of 1635
than it is in the map of Africa in the latest edition of

28 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

the Encyclopmdia Britannica. The early geographers
knew, moreover, of the existence of Lake Rudolf, which
was not seen by any European until 1889 ; and
they marked the courses of the two chief rivers of
British East Africa, the Tana and Sabaki, with greater
accuracy than was done in our maps of ten years
ago.

In fact, the end of the first half of the nineteenth
century is the period when European ignorance of the
geography of Central Africa reached its climax ; the
reports of early travellers had been dismissed as lies
and fables, and the whole interior of the continent was
represented as an uninhabited, desert waste.

But these early explorations must not be forgotten, as
the reports to which they gave rise, inspired interest in
Central Africa, and guided later travellers to their goal.

At what date the exploration of the interior of East
Africa began is unknown, for some of the results are
quoted in the oldest known literature. On early
Egyptian monuments there are figures of the equatorial
dwarfs, with the name " Akka " written beside them.
These drawings show that at the time when they were
made there was intercourse between Egypt and the
highlands on the south-western part of the Nile basin.
The first pages of existing literature show some know-
ledge of Equatorial Africa. Homer states that when, to
escape the northern winter, —

DAWN OF EAST AFRICAN GEOGRAPHY 29

" To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly,
With noise and order, thro' the mid-way sky.
To pygmy nations wounds and death they bring."

As the flamingoes of the Mediterranean migrate every
winter to the Upper Nile, where the pygmies still live,
this passage shows that, even in Homer's time, the
Greeks knew something of the more striking marvels of
Eastern Equatorial Africa,

The indications of this knowledge become more pre-
cise in the works of later classical authors, and, before
the beginning of the Christian Era, the Greek geogra-
phers certainly possessed much reliable information
about Equatorial Africa.

This knowledge was no doubt obtained, in the first
instance, from traders, some of whom journeyed south,
across the Sahara or up the Nile, while others sailed
down the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean, and along the
East African coast.

The trade was probably begun and developed by the
Phoenicians, for Solomon's joint enterprise with Hiram
of Tyre is the first recorded commercial venture in
Eastern Africa. The ships were built on the Red Sea
at Eziongeber in the land of Edom. Hiram supplied
the seamen and Solomon the commercial travellers.
Once every three years the fleet returned from Ophir,
with " gold and silver, ivory, and apes and peacocks."

If the peacocks were guinea-fowl, as has been not un-
reasonably suggested, then Solomon's Ophir may well

30 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

have been in South- Eastern Africa. That Phoenician or
Sabean influence reached the Zambesi is shown by the
famous ruin of Zimbabwe in Mashona-land. It is prob-
able that this temple was built by the traders, who
worked the goldfields of British South Africa centuries
before the Christian era.

We are not, however, compelled to rely on any doubt-
ful identification, such as the site of Solomon's Ophir
must always remain. The writings of classical geo-
graphers contain definite evidence of the early explora-
tion of Equatorial Africa. Herodotus tells us of the
journey of some young men from Nassamonia, a country
to the west of Lower Egypt, who crossed the Sahara to
a river, which is generally believed to be the Niger. He
further records the circumnavigation of Africa, two
centuries before his time, by some mariners sent out by
Pharaoh Necho. These men were Phoenicians, who en-
tered the Egyptian service ; ships were built on the Red
Sea, and the expedition started southward. It passed
through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, out into the Indian
Ocean, and slowly made its way down the East African
coast. Several times the stores of food were exhausted,
and the mariners had to haul their boats ashore, and sow a
crop of grain. They waited until it had grown, and when
it was harvested, the boats were launched again on the
arduous voyage. At length the explorers reached the
southern coast of what is now Cape Colony ; they
steered westward, with the sun on their right hand, until

DAWN OF EAST AFRICAN GEOGRAPHY 31

they again turned to the north, entered the Mediterra-
nean through the Pillars of Hercules, and reached Egypt
after an absence of three years.

Herodotus, himself, dismisses the report as fabulous,
owing to the assertion that, during part of the voyage,
the sun was on their right hand. This statement, however,
is now regarded as probably the strongest evidence in
favour of the truth of the narrative.

The objects of Solomon's southern venture were
avowedly commercial, and the first Egyptian expedi-
tions were probably inspired by the same motive. But
the Egyptian traders were soon followed by geographers
anxious to solve the problem, why the Nile should rise
in flood during the hottest and driest season of the
year. The explanation, that it was due to snow on
high mountains melting in the summer, had even then
been suggested ; for Herodotus argues against the theory
on the ground of the high temperature of the country
south of Egypt, as proved by the heat of the south wind,
the blackness of the natives, and the southward flight of
the cranes to avoid the winter cold. The snow theory
being dismissed as improbable, the behaviour of the Nile
remained a puzzle which specially roused the interest of
the speculative Greeks. Thus the first question that
Alexander the Great put to the oracle of Jupiter
Ammon was an inquiry respecting the sources of the
Nile, Nero sent an army up the Nile to trace the river
to its head, while the wiser Ptolemy Philadelphus en-

32 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

deavoured to solve the problem by sending an expedi-
tion overland from the eastern coast. That the origin
of the Nile was a source of interest to the Romans in
the time of Nero may be seen in the Phavsalia, where
Lucan makes Caesar say that he would abandon the
career of arms, if he could see the Nile fountains.

That the repeated efforts to reach the Upper Nile were
rewarded by definite information about the source of that
river, is proved by the works of the classical geographers.
They show that the Nile rises from three lakes in the
equatorial regions, and that, later on, it is joined by the
Blue Nile from Abyssinia. This knowledge is evident
in Hipparchus' map, and the same information is re-
peated, with much additional matter, in Ptolemy's map
and writings, A.D. 1 50.

Before Ptolemy, however, an account of the East
African coast was issued in an Egyptian " Pilot's Guide
to the Indian Ocean," which was compiled towards the
end of the first century A.D.

This work* is of interest, as it gives the earliest
description of Zanzibar. The name of the author is un-
known. The title of the book is the " Periplus of the
Red Sea " {Peviphis Maris Erythraei), Its authorship
was once referred to Arrian.

The exact date of the work is uncertain, but that it
is earlier than the time of Ptolemy is evident from its

' A text in Greek and Latin, with elaborate notes, is published
in Mailer's Lesser Greek Geographers (1855), vol. i. pp. 257-305.

DAWN OF EAST AFRICAN GEOGRAPHY 33

less accurate information regarding India. The author's
information was probably obtained from the logs of the
mariners and traders, who had journeyed into the Indian
Ocean. The Periplus describes the sailing route down
the Red Sea, and round Cape Aromata (Cape Guar-
dafui). The country near it was rich in frankincense,
myrrh, and spices. After passing the Cape, the route
lay along the East African coast, and during the voyage
the merchants exchanged corn, wine and weapons for
ivory, tortoiseshell and rhinoceros horns.

A translation of the description of the East African
coast in the Periplus, for which I am indebted to my
colleague. Professor Tucker, is given in an appendix
to this chapter (page 49).

Ptolemy's account is more detailed. The passages
are worth quoting as the first description of East Africa,
of which we know the date and author. The translation
is by Dr. Schlichter.

" Going from Arabia to Aromata, the course passes
the country of Barbaria ; after Aromata, there is a bay,
and the village of Panum situated in it, one day's
journey distant from Aromata. From this village the
emporium of Opone is distant another day's journey,
and then comes a second bay. Here begins the country
of Azania, near the promontory of Zingis, and the moun-
tain of Phalangis, which has three peaks. This bay
is called Apocopa, and can be passed in two days and
two nights. Then, thre courses distant, we find the

D

34 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Little Strand, and another place which is called the
Great Strand, and is five courses distant from the former ;
both these distances can be accomplished by sailing in
four days and four nights. Then follows another bay,
in which is situated an emporium called Essina, reached
after a further navigation of one day and one night ;
and then commences the bay, which extends to Rhapta
and is a three days' and three nights' journey by ship.
Near the beginning of this bay is an emporium, which
is called Tonike, and not far from the promontory of
Rhaptum is the river Rhaptus, and the capital with the
same name, the latter being inland, but not far from the
coast. From Rhaptum to the promontory of Praesum
extends a very large but shallow bay, the shores of
which are inhabited by cannibals."

In a later passage Ptolemy continues :
" Ethiopia, which is situated south of these regions,
and of the whole country of Libya, is terminated north-
ward by a line, reaching from the promontory of Rhap-
tum to the large bay of the exterior ocean, and by
that part of the western ocean which is near it. West
and south it is terminated by unknown country. On
the eastern side it reaches from the promontory of
Rhaptum and bay of Barbaria (which is called the
' rough sea,' on account of the force of the waves) to
the promontory of Praesum. After that the country is
unknown."

Still more important than Ptolemy's knowledge of

DAWN OF EAST AFRICAN GEOGRAPHY 35

the coast line is the fact that he had some acquaintance
with the ivory-yielding hinterland. For he tells us that
to the west of his cannibal-haunted bay, between
Praesum and Rhaptum, extend the mountains of the
Moon, from which the Nile lakes receive the snows. It
is true that the positions assigned by Ptolemy to these
lakes were inaccurate, but this mistake was inevitable, as
he had to rely only on the recollections of rough-route
traverses by native traders. Cooley dismissed Ptolemy's
information as the result of a few lucky guesses. But
the closeness of the coincidence, and the fact that Ptolemy
was a scientific geographer and not a guesser, render
this view improbable. The information is sufficiently
accurate, in the essential points, to show that the east-
coast caravans must, even at this early date, have
worked their way to the high plateau of the interior.

Ptolemy's belief that the Nile was fed by melting
snow is interesting, as it shows that all the classical
authorities were not convinced by Herodotus' arguments.
But for the first certain evidence of the existence of
snow-capped mountains in Eastern Africa we have to
turn to the Arabian geographers, who, after the fall of
the Mediterranean school, continued the exploitation of
the country.

The Arabians and Persians had probably conducted
an East African ivory and slave trade from the re-
motest antiquity. Many of the Persian tales are based

36 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

on the adventures of their sailors on the eastern coast.
Sinbad the Sailor's powerful bird, the roc, for instance,
is most likely the now extinct yEpyornis of Madagascar,
which laid truly colossal eggs ; and Reinaud, it may
be remembered, has identified the Isles of Wak-Wak as
the Zanzibar group.

After the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt, the
Arabian geographers became as interested in the
mystery of the Nile as the Greeks had been, and they
explored the Nile Valley as well as the eastern coast.
Stanley quotes Abdul Hassan Ali, an Arab geogra-
pher, who was born at Bagdad and settled in Egypt
in A.D. 955, as saying :

" I have seen, in a geography, a plan of the Nile
flowing from the Mountains of the Moon — Jebel Kumr.
The waters burst forth into twelve springs and flow into
two lakes, like unto the ponds of Bussora. After leaving
these lakes the waters reunite, and flow through a sandy
and mountainous country. The course of the Nile is
through that part of the Soudan near the country of the
Zenj (Zanzibar)."

Hence the Arabs believed in the " Mountains of the
Moon " as firmly as did Ptolemy. Edrisi, a twelfth-
century geographer, also tells us that the Nile rises from
two lakes, which discharge their water into a third ;
this is exactly true of the Nile, and he adds that these
lakes are all to the north of the " Mountains of the
Moon."

DAWN OF EAST AFRICAN GEOGRAPHY 37

Two centuries later (in 1331) the famous Arab ex-
plorer, Sheikh Ibn Batuta, during the course of his
75,000 miles of wandering, visited the east coast and
described Mombasa. He calls it a large town, and
speaks of the natives as " chaste, honest and religious,"
but he tells us nothing of the interior, and it is not until
the seventeenth century that we get the first definite
account of the East African snow fields.

An Arab manuscript, of the year of the Hegira 1098
(a.d. 1686), which Stanley gives in a translation, dis-
cusses the old problem of the periodic floods of the
Nile:

" Some say that its rise is caused by snow melted in
summer, and, according to the quantity of snowfall, will
be the greater or lesser rise." " The Nile," it continues,
" starts from the Mountains of Gumr beyond the
Equator. There is a difference of opinion as to the
derivation of the word ' Gumr.' Some say it ought to
be pronounced ' Kamar,' which means the sun ; but the
traveller, Ti Tarshi, says that it was called by that name
because 'the eye is dazzled by the great brightness.'
Some say that people have ascended the mountain, and
one of them began to laugh and clap his hands, and
thr6w himself down on the further side of the mountain.
The others were afraid of being seized with the same
fit, and so came back. It was said that those who saw
it saw bright snows, like white silver, glistening with
light."

38 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Ibn Batuta's visit to Mombasa was in 1331, and his
account shows that the Arabs were then in undisputed
control of the coast lands ; but, at the end of the next
century, the Portuguese arrived upon the scene.

The first Portuguese expedition to visit East Africa
was that of Vasco da Gama, who rounded the Cape
of Good Hope, and, in 1498, worked his way north-
ward to Melindi, whence he sailed across the ocean
to India.

The various accounts of his expedition, though they
differ in important particulars, give us a good idea of
the state of the country at that time. The coast towns
were all under Arab rule, and were far more flourishing
than they have been in recent times.

Kilwa was a great rendezvous of the Arab traders, for
Vasco da Gama's pilot told him " that Quilva was in-
deed a great city, and traded in much merchandise,
which came from abroad in a great many ships from
all parts, especially from Mekkah ; and that, in the
city, there were many kinds of people; and there were
some Armenian traders, who were from a country
called Armenia, and it was said that these people were
Christians."

Vasco da Gama arrived at Mombasa on 7th April,
1498. He describes it as "a great city of trade, with
many ships." The king sent the explorers " a large
boat laden with fowls, sheep, sugar canes, citrons, lemons,
and large, sweet oranges, the best that had ever been

• DAWN OF EAST AFRICAN GEOGRAPHY 39

seen " ; he also sent " a respectable old Moor " to wel-
come Da Gama, and to say that " his pleasure would
be complete when the ships were at anchor within his
port, if he could go in person to visit him on board of
his ship " ; and he hoped " that peace would last for
ever between him and their king."

The old Moor returned with two of the Portuguese,
one of whom was Peter Diaz. They were promised that

* they should have, without money, all that they saw
and required, or that they asked for." They were taken
to the houses of some Moors, " who feigned to be
Christians, and who showed them beads with crosses,
which they kissed and put in their eyes, and did great
honour to our people for being Christians, making them
sit down and eat cakes of rice, with butter and honey,
and plenty of fruit."

Unfortunately, what appears to have been a misunder-
standing broke off these friendly relations, and deprived
us of any detailed account of Mombasa in the year
1498. The entrance to Mombasa Harbour is obstructed
by coral reefs, and its navigation is often difficult. While
working through the channel, Vasco da Gama's ship
" missed stays," and began to drift towards the bank.
The anchors were dropped, sails struck, and the danger
averted. These proceedings were accompanied by much
rushing and shouting on the part of the Portuguese
crew ; the native pilots, according to one account, were
so terrified that some of them sprang overboard. There-

40 BRITISH EA.ST AFRICA

upon, Vasco da Gama suspected treachery ; he seized the
last of the pilots, and, by applications of boiling grease,
made the poor wretch confess that the pilots had been
ordered to wreck the ships. Vasco da Gama, accord-
ingly, at once sailed northward. As Peter Diaz, one of
the sailors who was ashore at the time of the mishap,
was kindly treated by the natives, and at the first
opportunity sent to India after Da Gama, the Portuguese
suspicions were probably unfounded.

At Melindi, the next important port north of Mom-
basa, Vasco da Gama made a long stay, which enabled
him to give a detailed account of that town. This
description is worth notice, as showing the wealth and
civilization which the country then enjoyed, and the
simple friendliness with which the natives were prepared
to welcome the new comers. In Vasco da Gama's de-
scription of Melindi, he tells us that " the city was a
great one, of noble buildings, and surrounded by walls,
and, placed immediately on the shore, it made an im-
posing appearance." The " king " invited the Portuguese
ashore, and promised them every hospitality. But, re-
membering Mombasa, the suspicious da Gama declined
the invitation, on the ground that " he and his men had
been forbidden by their sovereign to land in foreign
countries." As Camoens puts it — da Gama

" obeys his king's command.
That, till his orient mission be complete,
Nor coast nor harbour tempt him from the fleet.

DAWN OF EAST AFRICAN GEOGRAPHY 41

This excuse was accepted by the king, who forthwith
made the expedition a generous present of food. He
sent them a boat " laden with large copper kettles, and
cauldrons of boiled rice, and very fat sheep roasted
whole, and boiled, and much good butter, and thin cakes
of wheat and rice flour, and many fowls, boiled and
roast, stuffed with rice inside ; also much vegetables
and figs, cocoanuts, and sugar canes ; and all in such
quantities, that all the crews of the ships were sated."
The Portuguese were soon convinced of the natives'
sincerity, and landed in the town. The king looked
after his visitors with oriental hospitality. " In order
that our people should not be cheated in the price 01
things, the king ordered it to be cried all over the city,
that nobody was to sell anything to the Portuguese for
more than it was worth, and that if any one did so, he
would send and burn his house, so that all observed
this order." To mark his gratitude for the help given
him in the refitting of his ships for the voyage to India,
Vasco da Gama erected a pillar on an adjacent head-
land, and he told the king that he had been ordered
not to do so "except in a country in which they
knew true friendship and sincere love, such as you,
sire, have shown us out of the greatness of your good-
ness."

The friendly relations between the Portuguese and
the East African Arabs did not, however, long continue,
Mvita, the native name for Mombasa, means " battle,"

42 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

and for some time after the arrival of the Portuguese,
the name was only too well deserved.

After Vasco da Gama's return to Lisbon, a fleet was
sent to India to annex and proselytize the country.
Its commander, Cabral, was ordered to begin with
preaching, and if that failed, to proceed to " the sharp
determination of the sword." In 1500 he looted Mom-
basa, to avenge the supposed treachery to da Gama.
In 1503 the town was again visited by a Portuguese
fleet, and compelled to pay tribute. In August, 1505,
it was attacked and destroyed by Francisco Almeyda
with a fleet of twenty ships. Three years later the
island was formally annexed to Portugal. But the
inhabitants were turbulent, and gave so much trouble
that in 1528 Don Zuna da Cunha was sent to raze the
city to the ground, and it was captured after a desperate
defence of four months. Later on the city was rebuilt,
and its history was comparatively uneventful until 1586,
when a Turkish fleet, under AH Bey, visited Mombasa,
which promptly placed itself under the suzerainty of
the Porte.

A fleet from India, under Alfonso de Melo Bombeyro,
punished this act of rebellion and defiance by again
burning the town. Mombasa was soon rebuilt, but
only to be burnt again — this time by a tribe of southern
cannibals known as the Zimba, whose name is still
current in the legends of the Suahili. The Zimba were
soon expelled by the Portuguese, who, to secure their

DAWN OF EAST AFRICAN GEOGRAPHY 43

hold on the island, built the fort of Mombasa in 1 594 ;
the stone for the building is said to have been brought
ready trimmed from Portugal.

The struggle between the Portuguese and the Arabs
continued. In 1630 a revolt broke out under an apos-
tate mission boy, Yusuf bin Ahmed, who attacked the
fort. The Portuguese capitulated on condition that
their lives should be spared, but the treacherous natives
shot all their prisoners with arrows. A powerful force
from India landed in Mombasa to avenge the massacre.
Yusuf defended the fortress for three months, then
dismantled it, and fled to Arabia in a captured Portu-
guese ship. In 1635 Xerxas de Cabreira rebuilt the
fort, which still stands, and is the most picturesque and
interesting building in British East Africa.

Until 1660 the Portuguese supremacy was undis-
puted, but then the Mazrui, the leading Arab clan on
the east coast, entered into alliance with the Sultan
of Muscat. This potentate is more correctly known
as the I man of Oman, the south-eastern province of
Arabia. The allied Arab forces captured the fort of
Mombasa after a five years' struggle, but the Portu-
guese still maintained their hold over the town and
over part of the island ; but in 1698 the Arabs were
finally victorious, and the Portuguese for the last time
were expelled from Mombasa.

The Portuguese, during their occupation of Mombasa,
held it rather as a point of departure for India than

44 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

for the sake of the country itself They seemed to take
small interest in the interior, and we learn little about
it from them. Fernandez de Enciso, in his Suma de
Geographia ( 1 5 30), states that " West of this port
[Mombasa] stands the Mount Olympus of Ethiopia,
which is exceedingly high, and beyond it are the
' Mountains of the Moon,' in which are the sources of
the Nile." His Mount Olympus, west of Mombasa, is
probably Kilima Njaro.

De Barros, in 1552, records that the Arabs knew the
fi Quilimanse ^ for thirty days' journey into the interior,
and that negro caravans came to the coast, from the
interior, with gold.

Much of the Portuguese information regarding the
interior was doubtless derived from the Arabs, but that
some of the Portuguese themselves went inland is
known from various records: thus Marmol (1667) re-
ports that a Portuguese named Fonseco explored the
Quilimanse for five days' journey into the interior. It
was probably the Portuguese who supplied the informa-
tion in John Senex's map of 171 1, which represents
Baringo as an isolated lake without an outlet, although
the contrary was incorrectly maintained by Livingstone
and Burton, two and a half centuries later.

That Portuguese missionaries worked their way in-

' The name Quilimanse has been given to the Sabaki, Tana
and Juba. In this case it is probably intended for the Sabaki,
as the mouth of the river is said to be at Melindi.

DAWN OF EAST AFRICAN GEOGRAPHY 45

land is also probable from Sanson d'Abbeville's map.
Opposite the head of the Tana and the northernmost
tributary of the Sabaki, i.e. the Athi, is an isolated
mountain, corresponding in position to Kenya. Against
it is written, " N. D. Monasterium," which suggests that
the Portuguese had a mission station in that district,
as they certainly had in some of the other localities
thus marked on the map.

In Equatorial Africa, however, the Portuguese made
no such extensive explorations inland as they did further
south in the Zambesi basin. The first detailed accounts
of journeys in the interior we owe to the Arabs, who
succeeded to supreme power on the coast after the
expulsion of the Portuguese. To Arab traders belongs
the honour of having first explored the interior of
British East Africa, which they traversed in every
direction. Most of the results of their work have, how-
ever, been lost, as there are no written records ; but a
number of itineraries were collected by Denhardt and
published by him in 188 1. In these itineraries Den-
hardt constructed a map which marks nearly every
important lake, mountain, and river in British East
Africa. The outlines are crude, and the relative posi-
tions often incorrect, but this map of 1881 was much
fuller of detail than maps published some years later
by European travellers. The journeys of these brave
Arab and Suahili traders must be counted among the

46 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

most remarkable feats of travel in the history of British
East Africa, and their names are worthy of an honoured
place in the roll of East African explorers.

Long before any European explorer had reached
Naivasha or Baringo these lakes were marked on
Denhardt's map, on the faith of the journey of Kam-
tima of Tanga. This trader started inland from
Freretown, the Church Mission Settlement opposite
Mombasa. He marched across the Nyika to Lake
Jipe, at the south-eastern foot of Kilima Njaro ; thence
he struck northward past Taveta, round the western
flank of Kilima Njaro, and over the Kapte Plains to
Ngongo Bagas, the famous trading rendezvous at
the south-western end of the Kikuyu country. Thence
he marched along the Rift Valley to Lake Naivasha,
and again on to the salt lake of Nakuro and the
river Njoki (Nyuki), which flows through Njemps into
Baringo. From Njemps, Kamtima continued along
the Rift Valley, for two marches, to Kamasia, and thence
to the country of the Suk. Three days more took him
to a lake which Denhardt records as Baringo, but which
must be Lake Rudolf, as the true Baringo is only six
miles, and not six marches, from Njemps.

Further information regarding the Rift Valley, in the
Naivasha to Baringo district, was obtained by Kaptao
of Mombasa, who reported the existence of Doenyo
Ngai, a still active steam vent in Masai-land, and who
successfully crossed the dangerous country of Sotik.

DAWN OF EAST AFRICAN GEOGRAPHY 47

Kaptao knew Lake Baringo, and of the existence to
the south of it of the now well-known hot springs of
Suva ya Moto, and the adjacent lake (Lake Losuguta),
with " hot, bitter, stinking waters." The truth of
Kaptao's report the present author found to his cost
when he reached that lake waterless in 1893.

Another famous Arab traveller was Ferhaji of Pan-
gani, who crossed the Mau plateau from Naivasha to
the shores of the Victoria Nyanza in Kavirondo ;
thence he returned to Lake Baringo by a march which
gives the first information about the now famous
locality of Eldoma, the ravine by which the Uganda
road leaves the Rift Valley. He refers to the locality
as Eldomiano. Ferhaji was quite clear as to the dis-
tinction between the three lakes, the Victoria Nyanza,
Baringo, and Lake Rudolf The first he calls, ap-
parently from its size, the Bahari dja Pili, " the Second
Sea " ; the name Baringo, he says, comes from Bahari
Ndogo, " or Little Lake," while Lake Rudolf he refers
to as Samburu. Ferhaji had reached Lake Rudolf
from Naivasha, across the western margin of Laikipia,
through the bamboo forests of Miansini, over the
grazing plain of Rangatan Busi (Angata Wus as
Denhardt spells it), round the northern flanks of
Settima, and over the wooded ranges of Subugo, of
most of which places we first hear in the narrative of
this enterprising Suahili.

Another remarkable journey of Ferhaji's was from

48 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Mombasa past Kilima Njaro to Naivasha, and thence
across Laikipia to Ndoro at the western foot of Kenya.
He skirted the Kenya forest belt to the north, and
crossed the Djombeni Mountains, a range of which we
first hear from European travellers, after the expedition
of Chanler and von Hohnel in 1893. Ferhaji, in the same
journey, also reached the vast swamp of Lake Lorian.

The Kenya district was visited by Mkaba of Ikanga,
who made the first recorded traverse of Laikipia, from
the foot of Kenya to Baringo.

Another route to Lake Rudolf, by the eastern foot
of Kenya, was followed by Kamtjimi of Wasin. This
intelligent trader brought back with him some remark-
able information about a tribe of natives who live on a
high mountain on the eastern shore of Lake Rudolf;
these natives are said to be " Ristiani," and to " hold their
goods in common, and believe in Issa and Mariam ; and
are therefore no heathens." They trade with the Somali
and Abyssinians.

No travellers have yet found any Christians in this
district, or any record of faith in Jesus or Mary, but the
persistent native rumours of the existence of such a
tribe, in the district east of Lake Rudolf, render it
probable that there is a clan in that district which has
retained some relics of the Christian faith, gained by
their ancestors from Abyssinia, or from the missions of
the Portuguese.

Lig-fic Tons I'.t'quutcur

C5

M L R I D I O N A L

E T H I 0 P I E N

r

Appendix

Account of the East African Coast in " The

Periplus of the Red Sea," translated

BY Professor Tucker

" From Opone [i.e. Afun or Hafun] the shore drawing
more to the south/ first there come what are called the
Little and Big Sheer-crests of Azania ~[by means of
places for casting anchor, rivers] to the extent of six runs,
the course being now due S.W. Then came the Little
Beach and the Big Beach for another six runs, and next
(there follow) in succession the runs ^ of Azania ; in
the first place, that which bears the name of Sarapion,
then that of Nicon, following which are a number of
rivers and other anchorages one after another, at in-
tervals of stages and runs, to the number of seven al-
together, as far as the Pyralaoi islands and what is called
the Channel, from which, a little up from the S.W.,'^

' i.e. the shore _^rsf runs S., and then, when the Apocopa
begin, it runs exactly S.W. This I gather from the Greek, not
the Atlas.

^ Text corrupt. (I suppose he said that there were spots where
you could cast anchor.)

^ The language denotes that the name was established and
recognised for that part.

* i.e. '•'■back up" from S.W, and more towards E. So, at least, I
should understand it if I had no maps and no knowledge of the
place referred to.

49 E

50 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

after two runs of a day and night * -x- * (running)^
exactly westerly^ there meets you the island ^ Menuthias/

' Text meaningless.

^ The name slightly corrupted.

^ i.e. the island, as you meet it in coming to it, stretches to
W. But the text immediately following is a jargon, and there is no
deciding precisely to what ivap avrrjv rrjv Bva-vp refers.

* If by this island he meant Zanzibar, it is most remarkable that
he did not mention Pemba. His Trora/xol is applicable to a " stream "
of any size, and need not be taken as much argument. (I don't
know whether there are " streams " in Pemba.) On the other
hand, his next section carries us past Zanzibar, and ignores it if
ikis island is Pemba ; and surely he would mention Zanzibar. I
feel that there is no sort of certainty as to the amount of accidental
omission from our text. The letters fiT{vr]8ia>n may be all that
remains of something (beginning with eKreivei or the like) which
dropped out because followed by a similar-looking clause begin-
ning with dra or the like. It is useless to guess. On the whole,
I feel convmced that he has lumped Pemba and Zanzibar together —
to this extent, that the island which " meets " you " a little way
back from S.W." is Pemba, but the general description is of
Zanzibar. In other words, if you come your "two runs of a day
and a night " from " the Channel," you will be " met," a " little
more E. of your S.W. course," by an island which presents
you with a coast "running west." This ought to be the N.
coast of Pemba. Now, assuming that this N. coast of Pemba
was familiar by sight to our sailor friends, they probably knew
little more about the island, although, again, they did know some-
thing more of Zanzibar. In any case our author appears to me to
have got already a little out of his own distance, and to be, as I
say, lumping information.

Nevertheless, the gap may be considerable in the corrupt
portion, and he may have spoken of Pemba first and Zanzibar next.
Omissions of the sort are not rare in Greek MSS.

APPENDIX 51

about 300 stades [37 miles] from the land, low-lying and
covered with trees, in which are rivers, and very many
sorts of birds, and tortoises. Of wild animals, it con-
tains none at all except crocodiles,^ but they hurt no
man. There are in it little boats sewn together, or
made of a single log, which they use for fishing and
catching turtle. In this island they also snare them
in a peculiar manner with baskets, which they let down
instead of nets about the openings [inlets] of the fore-
shore."

' We have no right to suppose that the author thought them to
be anything else, whatever they may have been in reality.

Chapter IV
THE MOMBASA MISSIONS

" He hath showed His people the power of His works, that He
may give them the heritage of the heathen."

THE geographical reports of the early Portuguese
and Arab traders were unconvincing and in-
adequate. They were the work of men who
kept no journals, who took no observations, and who,
on their return, could only tell rough yarns, like those
on which Defoe founded his story of Captain Singleton's
adventures in Madagascar and march across Africa.
The critical geographers of the early part of the
present century, accordingly, dismissed all the available
evidence as mere travellers' tales, unworthy of notice
outside of a nursery. Hence, while maps of the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries were full of details
regarding the interior of Africa, the maps of the con-
tinent, between 1820 and 1850, represented the whole
interior as an unknown, unvisited blank.

The tales of the Arab traders, however, roused the
curiosity of more skilled explorers, and thus led to the
next stage in the exploration of the interior, the work

THE MOMBASA MISSIONS 53

of the geographical pioneers. The pioneers in the ex-
ploration of Eastern Equatorial Africa were Dr. Lud-
wig Krapf and Sir Richard Burton, who were sent to
the East African coast on missions at a time when
Europe had little concern or interest in that region.
Both men fell under the spell of its singular and power-
ful fascination.

Burton, with his usual facility in acquiring languages
and winning the confidence of Orientals, gained the
intimacy of the men who led caravans into the interior,
and of slaves who remembered the land of their birth.
The natives told him of great lakes, one of them so
vast and stormy that they called it the " Second Sea."
These tales roused Burton's interest, and he resolved to
explore the mysterious region around these inland seas.

Krapf was a man of quite another type of mind.
He was a simple-hearted, pure-souled evangelist, who
had settled on the eastern coast near Mombasa, in the
service of the Church Missionary Society. His interests
were religious, not scientific. At first he cared nothing
about geographical exploration, except as the instru-
ment by which the Gospel could be carried to the people
of the interior. He studied the character of the natives
in order to discover how to win their souls, and he com-
piled dictionaries and grammars of their languages
that the people might learn the teachings of Christ.

The work of Krapf and Burton lay on the coast
lands, but they both looked eagerly westward at the

54 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

wall of the East African plateau, and longed to climb
it. Krapf prayed daily that he might scale that " ram-
part of East African heathendom," and Burton made
up his mind that he would follow the strange roads
that led across it into the darkness of the unknown land
beyond.

Burton was the more successful in rousing English
interest in the interior of the country, for Krapf s
reports were discredited as those of an untrained,
unreliable missionary. But to Krapf is due the
honour of beginning European exploration in Eastern
Equatorial Africa.

Ludwig Krapf was born on the nth January, 1810,
and was the son of a Wurtemberg farmer. As he tells
us in quaint narrative : " My father, whose circum-
stances were easy, followed farming, and lived in the
village of Derendingen, near Tubingen." He was edu-
cated at Tubingen, where he showed great zeal as a
student. He suffered severely during his passage
through a period of philosophic doubt. When his
mental struggle was over, he resolved to devote his life
to the African mission service. He was trained for the
work at a college in Basel, and then sent by the Church
Missionary Society to Shoa, a province on the south-
western border of Abyssinia. He was well received by
the King of Shoa, and laboured there for some years ;
then he went back to Europe for a visit, and married

UK. lAinVU; KRAl'T.

THE MOMBASA MISSIONS 55

during his stay there. On his return to Africa, in 1842,
he found that Shoa had been closed to Protestant mis-
sionaries, a proceeding which he attributed to the
intrigues of a French mission.

Krapf had taken especial interest in the tribe of
Galla who live in the country between Abyssinia and
Mombasa, and he thought that, as he could not reach
the Galla through Shoa, he could do so from the eastern
coast. He and his wife, accordingly, started from
Aden in an Arab dhow; the vessel was nearly wrecked,
and had to put back to Aden. A second attempt was
more successful. On the 23rd of November, 1843, they
started south again in a smaller dhow, under the com-
mand of a native from Mombasa. They made slow
progress in the Gulf of Aden, and it was not until i8th
December that they rounded the eastern horn of Africa.
They then had a fairer wind, made a better voyage, and
landed at Mombasa on 4th January, 1844.

Krapf immediately began to search for the most
promising field for work. He made repeated excursions
to Zanzibar, to secure the support of the Sultan, and to
find the best site for his mission station. He finally
resolved on Mombasa, where he settled in June. The
natives of Mombasa have a proverb, " Better a useful
infidel than a useless believer," and in that tolerant and
practical spirit Krapf was welcomed. The Kadi of
Mombasa at once helped Krapf in the translation of
Genesis into Suahili. A month after the settlement,

56 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Krapf lost his wife and his new-born child, and the
bereaved missionary was left to work at his colossal task
alone. He made an excursion into the country of the
Wa-nyika, thinking that a mission there might be more
useful than among the civilized Mohammedan people
of Mombasa. He returned disappointed at the mental
condition of the natives. " Drunkenness and materialism
have completely blunted their perception of everything
connected with spiritual religion," wrote Krapf; and he
sadly confessed that among these people, " for the pre-
sent, no great missionary results were to be obtained."
But he had an unshaken belief that " Ethiopia shall
soon stretch out her hands unto God."

To enable Christian missionaries to respond when
the appeal came, Krapf translated the whole of the
New Testament into Suahili, and compiled a grammar
and dictionary of the language.

Next year (1845) he started inland again, to visit some
Wa-kamba, hoping that they would be better disciples
than the Wa-nyika, but he did not reach the Wa-kamba
country, and returned to the Wa-nyika, who promised
him every assistance. " Our land, our trees and houses,
our sons and daughters, are all thine," said the elders, in
reply to his request for permission to settle among them.

In 1845 Krapf was joined by Rebmann, the second of
the two great missionary pioneers of Eastern Africa.

Krapf had arranged to found his station on the hills
at Rabai, one of the spurs of the East African plateau.

THE MOMBASA MISSIONS 57

about ten miles from Mombasa. So Rebmann and he
went together and asked the elders for the promised
help. " The birds have nests, and the Wa-zungu
[Europeans] too must have houses," replied the elders ;
and the natives, though irregularly and unskilfully, gave
the missionaries such materials as they had, and helped
them to build their home.

There the two men laboured faithfully and patiently
to teach the natives, to undermine the influence of the
secret societies, and to abolish the old pagan rites. They
secured a few converts, but only a few. The awful
power of secret societies, the profound faith in fetishes,
the reluctance of the natives to abandon the ceremonies
connected with the initiation of boys into manhood, and
their enjoyment of the orgies that accompanied the
women's " Muansa," were all serious obstacles to the
missionaries' success. Krapf and Rebmann worked on,
undaunted by the difficulties of their task. Krapf learnt
the language of the Wa-nyika ; he wrote a primer of its
grammar, and collected much valuable information re-
garding the ordeals, institutions, and customs of the
natives.

But the two missionaries sadly realized that they were
making no sensible impression on the habits of the tribe,
and they yearned for a people less drunken and less
sensual than the Wa-nyika, and less influenced by
Mohammedanism than the inhabitants of the coast towns.
Four days' journey inland from Rabai the missionaries

58 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

saw the rugged peaks of Kilibasi and Kadiaro rising
above the plateau on their western horizon. The
traders who knew the regions beyond these moun-
tains told the missionaries weird stories of pygmies and
cannibals, of white-capped, lofty mountains, of the
" Second Sea," and of a vast western morass which is
the end of the world. Little by little these stories
though dismissed at first as " fabulous tales," had their
influence : they roused in the two brave missionaries
a keen interest in the western land.

Krapf had heard some of these stories before in
Abyssinia, where he had been told of a dwarf tribe, the
Doko ; and apparently the same race were now reported
to him by the east coast traders under the name of the
Wa-bilikimo. But what especially interested the mis-
sionaries were the rumours of Christian tribes in the
interior.

Krapf, when in Shoa, had heard of a tribe of white
Christian Galla, and of the land of Kambat, " where a
small nation of Christians, with fifteen churches and
monasteries, is said to have retained its existence."

Hence, as the missionaries began to despair of the
Wa-nyika, their thoughts turned to the people of the
interior, and, in 1847, they definitely resolved to carry
the Gospel to the inland tribes. It was decided that
Rebmann should work due westward from Mombasa,
while Krapf was to endeavour to reach his old goal,
Galla-land.

THE MOMBASA MISSIONS 59

The inland mission was begun in October, 1847, when
Rebmann, with six Wa-nyika and two " Mohammedans "
[Suahili], started on the first European expedition into
the interior of British East Africa. The journey was
short, and only lasted a fortnight : its goal was the peak
of Kadiaro, some eighty miles west of Mombasa. Reb-
mann brought back such a favourable report of the
mountain country, of the healthiness of its climate, and
the friendliness of its inhabitants, that the two mission-
aries were eager to establish a station there. " As
regards a mission," they wrote, " we can only say that it
is very feasible and very desirable. The way is clear."
And Krapf dreamed of a chain of mission stations
stretching right across Equatorial Africa, from the
Mom.basa to the Atlantic shore.

A few months later Rebmann started inland again
on a more ambitious errand. The missionaries had
heard strange tales about Kilima Njaro, and Rebmann
proposed to visit Chagga, the trading station at the
south-eastern foot of the mountain. The Governor of
Mombasa at first opposed the undertaking; he was
reluctant to let Rebmann expose himself to such risks.
" For," said he, " people who have ascended the mountain
have been slain by the spirits, their feet and hands have
been stiffened, their powder has hung fire, and all kinds
of disasters have befallen them." Rebmann promised
that he would not go " too near the fine sand," and
left Rabai for the interior on 27th April, 1848. On

6o BRITISH EAST AFRICA

May II, "about ten o'clock," he tells us in his journal,
" I saw the summit of one of the peaks covered with
a dazzlingly white cloud. My guide called the white
which I saw, merely ' Beredi,' cold ; it was perfectly
clear to me, however, that it could be nothing else but
snow." Rebmann returned to the coast, on June ii,
to announce the discovery that Kilima Njaro is capped
with perpetual snow.

In November of the same year Rebmann started on
a third expedition, intending to reach Kikuyu ; his party
was larger, consisting of sixteen natives, armed, some
with muskets, the rest with bows and arrows. The pro-
jected goal was not reached, but Rebmann paid a second
visit to Chagga, and saw again, even by moonlight, the
" majestic snow-clad summit" of Kilima Njaro. He
learnt from the natives that the white material, when put
into the fire, turns to water, and that its extent on the
mountain varies with the season. In April, 1849, Reb-
mann tried again to penetrate beyond Kilima Njaro. He
hired thirty porters, and hoped to reach the Unyamwesi
country. It was the rainy season, and Rebmann, who
travelled without a tent, often had no other protection
than his umbrella. He reached Chagga, but the Chief
extorted from him almost all his stores, and Rebmann
was compelled to return to the coast.

While Rebmann was thus exploring to the west of
Mombasa, Krapf had not been idle, and was preparing
to fulfil his old dream of a mission to the Galla, whose

THE MOMBASA MISSIONS 6i

land, in his enthusiasm, he describes as " Ormania, the
Germany of Africa." He first had to make a short visit
to the mountains of Usambara, in what is now German
East Africa, and he travelled there with a party of one
guide and seven porters. This mission accomplished, he
felt at liberty to turn his attention to the north-west.
His start was delayed by the arrival of Erhardt and
Wagner, two recruits for the mission, who landed at
Mombasa in June, 1849. Wagner died on the ist of
August, and Erhardt, for some time, was too ill and
inexperienced to be left alone, so Krapf was detained
for some months longer on the coast. At length, on the
1st November, 1849, Krapf was free to start on his pro-
jected mission. He read the 2nd chapter of Haggai,
which strengthened him greatly, and leaving Rabai, he
plunged into the dreary wilderness of the Nyika. His
caravan consisted of twelve porters, and his immediate
goal was Ukambani, the country of the Wa-kamba.
Thence he hoped to work his way to the Unyamwezi,
and onward " to the sources of the Nile, and to those
still surviving Christian remnants at the Equator of
whom I heard in Shoa."

The time was unfortunate, as it was the end of the
long dry season ; water was scarce, and the usual water
holes dry ; the route was badly selected, and took the
party through scrub so thick that they had to crawl on
hands and knees through the thickets. Nevertheless
they crossed the Nyika in safety to Taita, whence

62 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Krapf enjoyed a view of Kilima Njaro and its snow cap.
Turning northward, he crossed the Tzavo River, and
entered Ukambani. He reached the village of Kitui,
and from a hill above it, on 3rd December, 1849, he saw
the snow-flecked summit of Mount Kenya.

Krapf was delighted with the Wa-kamba, and resolved
to establish a mission in their country. He secured the
friendship of Kivoi, the chief of Kitui, and then
returned to the coast for the necessary stores, Krapf's
ultimate aim was to make this station in Ukamba the
first in a chain of mission settlements extending across
Equatorial Africa from Mombasa to the Atlantic.

He reached the coast in safety, and after a short rest
marched inland with a caravan of thirty porters. Provi-
dentially, he fell in with a party of 100 Wa-kamba, who
were returning home after a trading trip to Mombasa.
In the Taita country the caravan was attacked by
robbers. Krapf was no soldier, and always got into
trouble when fighting began.

" In the confusion," he tells us, " I lost my powder
horn, and one of my people burst the barrel of his gun
by putting too large a charge into it. The ramrod of
another was broken through his being knocked over by
a Mnika [one of Krapf's own men], in the confusion, just
as he was going to load, whilst the gun of another missed
fire altogether." The Wa-kamba traders made a better
defence, and beat back the robbers. Krapf was suitably
modest over the victory. "It was God who preserved

THE MOMBASA MISSIONS 63

us," he says, " and not our own sword and bow " —
a grateful acknowledgment, however, which omits d irect
reference to his Wa-kamba allies.

The rest of the journey was peaceful. Krapf reached
the plateau of Yata on the eastern border of Ukamba,
and there he built a hut and began mission work. He
was greatly encouraged by the friendliness of the natives
but troubled by the selfishness of his Wanika servants.

He visited his old friend Kivoi, who introduced him
to a native from the southern slopes of Kenya. This
man told Krapf that he had frequently been to the
mountain, but had not ascended it, because it contained
Kirira — a white substance producing very great cold.
The white substance, he added, produced continually a
quantity of water.

Kivoi was about to start for the country to the north
of the Tana, and Krapf, delighted with the prospect of
a nearer view of Kenya, consented to go with him.

Near the Tana the caravan was attacked by robbers.
The first fight was a victory indirectly due to Krapf,
though not to his fighting capacities. With character-
istic simplicity he left his ramrod in his gun when he
fired, so that he could not reload ; but the enemy were
temporarily routed by one of Kivoi's wives opening
Krapf 's umbrella. The raiders came on again later, and
the caravan was defeated. Krapf, having provided him-
self with a new ramrod, fired twice, but he fired in the
air, " for I could not bring myself to shed the blood of

64 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

man," and then he joined in the general flight. Kivoi
was killed, Krapf was left behind alone, and nearly fell
into the hands of the enemy by mistaking them for his
friends. He escaped, however, and hid in the forest on
the Tana banks. There he prepared for his journey over
the waterless desert, that lay between him and Ukamba.
He filled his telescope and both the barrels of his gun
with water, and started on the attempt to find his way
back. His improvised water bottles were not a
success, the telescope case leaked, and the bushes tore
the grass plugs out of the gun barrels. He was soon
starving for food and water. He ate leaves, roots,
elephant dung, and ants ; and when these failed, he tried
gunpowder, and the bitter shoots of a young tree. " I
soon felt severe pains in my stomach," says Krapf The
pains were probably very severe. Fortunately he fell in
with two of his fellow fugitives, who guided him back to
Ukamba. The natives were angry at the death of their
chief, which they held that Krapf ought to have pre-
vented. They appeared so hostile, that Krapf thought
it prudent to escape. He tried to cross the country by
night marches, but could not find his way, and after
three days of terrible hardships, he threw himself on the
mercy of a Mkamba. The native guided him to Kivoi's
village, whence he was sent back to his station at Yata.
Worn out with his exertions, Krapf felt bound to
return to the coast. The friendly Wa-kamba tried to
persuade him to stay longer among them, but on his in-

THE MOMBASA MISSIONS 65

sisting, they consented to his departure, and he left, " not
only in peace, but with honour,"

So the first Ukamba mission failed by an unlucky
accident, and Krapf returned to Europe in 1853, to
recover from the effects of his nine years' work in British
East Africa. In 1854 he started back for Rabai. He
was stopped by severe illness in Egypt ; he struggled
with disease, and the indomitable old missionary would
not easily give in. Reluctantly he was forced to the
conclusion that his constitution was broken, and his
African mission at an end. " So with deep sorrow," as
we can well believe, " in August, 1855, 1 bade farewell to
the land where I had suffered so much, journeyed so
much, and experienced so many proofs of the protecting
and sustaining hand of God, where, too, I had been per-
mitted to administer to many souls the Word of Life
and to name the Name of Jesus Christ in places where
it had never before been uttered and known. God grant
that the seed sown broadcast may not have fallen only
in stony places, but may spring up in due season, and
bear fruit a hundredfold."

But Krapf 's African work was not yet done. In
i860 he published his journals. Their contagious
enthusiasm roused some members of the United Metho-
dist Free Church to help forward the work. They
asked Krapf's advice. He, of course, offered his assist-
ance, and urged them to undertake the work. In 1861
four missionaries — Wakefield, Woolner, and two Swiss

F

66 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

— were sent out to establish the Methodist Mission in
East Africa. Krapf went with them to introduce them
to the country, and help them to found their stations,
Krapf took the Swiss to Kauma, in the northern part of
the Wa-nyika country, a site he selected, as it was on
the road to Galla-land. The missionaries were well
received, and it was arranged that they should settle at
Kauma as soon as they had learnt sufficient of the
language. Wakefield and Woolner were then similarly
introduced to the people of Usambara, and the mission
prospects seemed bright. But a wave of anti-European
feeling broke out in Mombasa, in consequence of a fight
in the harbour between some Arab slaves and the boats
of H.M.S. Ariel. The Swiss missionaries decided to
return home, and Woolner accompanied them, as his
health had collapsed.

Krapf then settled Wakefield at Ribe, a station six
miles north-east of Rabai, where a year later Wakefield
was joined by Charles New. These two missionaries
faithfully strove to follow in the footsteps of Krapf and
Rebmann. They worked among the Wa-nyika, and
sought to increase the area of their usefulness by
journeys inland. Wakefield, in 1865, visited the Galla
at Chafifa, and New, in 1866, ascended the Tana Valley
from Melindi as far as Ngao. He saw the Pokomo
along the Tana, and visited the Galla at their villages
on Lake Ashaka Babo. In 1871 New, whose interest
in Kilima Njaro had been roused by an interview with

THE MOMBASA MISSIONS 67

Van der Decken, on that ill-fated traveller's return from
the mountain in 1863, marched inland to Taveta. On
the 26th August, 1 87 1, in a second attempt to ascend
Kilima Njaro, New settled for ever the controversy as
to the character of its white cap by reaching its border,
and actually handling the East African snow.

This mountaineering feat of New's was important, as
the greatest doubts had been thrown on the truth of
Krapf and Rebmann's reports. Neither of the mission-
aries was a scientific observer ; they over-estimated their
distances, and they miscalculated their bearings. Hence
critics at home found it easy to detect improbabilities in
their narratives. And one party of critics, headed by
Livingstone and Cooley, scouted the possibility of these
equatorial snows. Cooley's criticisms were the most
precise : he declared that Kitui, the village whence
Krapf saw Kenya, must " stand within 60 miles of the
sea." The distance is really over 180 miles. The
perpetual snows Cooley dismissed as a myth.

"With respect to those eternal snows, on the dis-
covery of which Messrs. Krapf and Rebmann have set
their hearts, they have so little of shape or substance,
and appear so severed from realities, that they take
quite a spectral character. No one has yet witnessed
their eternity ; dogmatic assertion proves nothing ; of
reasonable evidence of perpetual snow there is not a
tittle offered. The only sentence in Mr. Rebmann's
journal which ventures to touch upon the fact of a fall

68 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

of snow is, as has been shown, neither genuine nor
correct " (p. 1 27).

Livingstone was almost as contemptuous, and even
in the introductory chapter to Krapfs own book the
same doubts were expressed, for of Cooley's disbelief
it is said, "whether on sufficient grounds or no is at
best but doubtful."

Cooley not only denied the existence of the snow
fields, but he attacked Krapfs character ; he insinuated
that his journeys were a misapplication of missionary
funds to satisfy personal ambition.

" Krapf holds," says Cooley, " that in Africa, geo-
graphical discovery must precede evangelization, and it
will be time enough to think of cultivating a corner of
the immense vineyard when the whole of it shall have
been explored. But the weakness of ambition is mani-
fest in his blind attachment to grand problems, and his
disinclination to relinquish the delusions connected with
them. Miserably poor in facts, he is profuse of theory ;
his distances are exaggerated, his bearings all in dis-
order, his etymologies puerile, and he seems to want
altogether those habits of mental accuracy without
which active reason is a dangerous faculty."

These attacks on Krapf were unjust and unjustifiable.
Fortunately the two founders of the East African
Mission lived to see their reports confirmed, and their
merits acknowledged.

After Krapfs return from the foundation of the Ribe

THE MOMBASA MISSIONS 69

Mission in 1863, he settled in Wurtemberg, whence he
wrote bright messages of encouragement and hope,
whenever the future of the East African Missions was
especially gloomy. He lived to welcome Stanley's
appeal for the evangelization of Uganda, and to
strengthen those weaker brethren whose hearts misgave
them, when the prospects of the Uganda Mission were
at their worst.

Rebmann stayed on in East Africa, working patiently
and faithfully, and almost forgotten. In 1872 Sir
Bartle Frere found him at Rabai, blind and infirm, but
still at work, and surrounded by a handful of devoted
converts.

After the Freretown Mission was established at the
end of 1874, Rebmann was reluctantly persuaded to
return home. He consented, for he felt that his pioneer
work was done. He had lived in East Africa, without
a single break, from 1845 to 1874. He had maintained
the continuity of the Church Missionary Society's work
in East Africa, from the time of Krapf 's departure till
the mission of Sir Bartle Frere, and the re-establish-
ment, in 1874, of the Society's work on a more adequate
and worthy scale.

Rebmann was brought back to Europe, and settled
beside his old comrade, Krapf, in the Kornthal. Krapf
arranged his marriage with a pious widow, who nursed
him through his last days.

But, after a twenty-nine years' residence in East

70 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Africa, the return to Europe was too great a wrench.
It would, perhaps, have been better for the blind old
missionary to have died among the coaverts he had
made, and to have been buried on the station where his
life's work was done. Rebmann died within a year of
his return, on 4th October, 1876, and five years later
(26th November, 1881) Krapf followed him to his rest.

The story of the work of Krapf and Rebmann, the
two founders of the East African Mission, is one of the
brightest chapters in African history. They entered
the mission field from motives of disinterested philan-
thropy. Their service is an example of the highest
type of missionary enterprise. Their enthusiasm was
irrepressible, and yet innocent of fanaticism ; their
sympathy with the natives they strove to convert was
as deep as their patience was inexhaustible. They
achieved great geographical success with insignificant
resources. Though they did not hesitate to denounce
evil practices, they kept aloof from politics ; nevertheless
they helped to revolutionize the political conditions ot
the continent by rousing European interest in Eastern
Equatorial Africa. Their work was great, and their
lives were noble. Said Said, the Sultan of Zanzibar,
wrote the simple truth when introducing Krapf to the
Governor of Mombasa, he described him as " a good
man, who wishes to convert the world to God."

Chapter V
THE QUEST FOR THE NILE SOURCES

" Arcanum natura caput non prodidit ulli,
Nee licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre,
Amovitque sinus, et gentes maluit ortus
Mirari, quam nosse, tuos. Consurgere in ipsis
Jus tibi solstitiis, aliena crescere bruma."

—Lucan, ^^ Pharsalia" (x. 295-9).

Nature conceals thy infant stream with care,
Nor let thee, but in majesty, appear.
Upon thy banks astonish'd nations stand,
Nor dare assign thy rise to one peculiar land.
Exempt from vulgar laws thy waters run,
Nor take their various seasons from the sun.

— Row^s Translation.

THE missionary was not long allowed a mono-
poly of pioneer exploration in East Africa.
The philanthropist was soon joined by the
geographical explorer. The annual occurrence of the
floods of the Nile at the driest and hottest season of
the year was an anomaly that impressed observers in
all ages. Every attempt to solve this problem directly
by a journey up the Nile Valley failed. The difficul-
ties were long insuperable, and geographers turned their

72 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

attention to the possibility of reaching the Nile sources
from the East Coast. With this end in view, Ptolemy
Philadelphus invaded Ethiopia ; and the accurate infor-
mation of Ptolemy the geographer was doubtless de-
rived from traders, who reached the Upper Nile basin
from the Zanzibar coast.

The search for the Nile sources, in the present
century, begins with the work of Sir Richard Burton,
who, in 1854, was sent on a mission to Harrar, a town
in the Galla country, south-west from Aden. The
journey gave him a keen interest in African research ;
and, a year later, he tried to make a dash for the in-
terior from Berbera on the Somali coast. The attempt
ended in disaster. The caravan was massacred by the
Somali, Lieutenant Stroyan was killed, Speke escaped
with nineteen spear wounds, and the Somali road was
closed for thirty years.

When another opportunity to reach Central Africa
came in Burton's way, he chose a more southern zone,
and entered East Africa opposite Zanzibar. His former
companion, John Manning Speke, again went with him.
The two travellers left the coast in June, 1857, ^"d
crossed the whole width of what is now German East
Africa, to the eastern shore of Tanganyika.

This journey marked one of the great epochs in East
African history, for it started the scientific explorations
of the equatorial lakes. The honour of beginning this
work belongs to the illustrious Burton ; the credit for its

THE QUEST FOR THE NILE SOURCES 73

continuation is mainly due to Speke. Burton was not
the type of man to enjoy travel among the Bantu tribes
of German East Africa. His mind was an unsuitable
instrument for such rough work. His companion, the
plodding Speke, though far inferior to him in brilliancy,
made the more successful traveller in Eastern Africa. By
the time the two men had reached the Arab settlement
at Kazeh, on the journey home, Burton had had enough
of the work. When Speke suggested a branch excur-
sion to visit a reputed lake beyond the hills of Unyam-
wezi. Burton was only too glad to let his companion
go alone, while he settled down for three months' life
among the Arab traders. Speke left Kazeh on 9th
July, 1858, and on the 3rd of the following month he
reached the shores of the Victoria Nyanza.

It was this discovery which connects the Burton
and Speke expedition with the history of British East
Africa. The discovery was of fundamental importance,
because it finally disposed of the theory that the various
lakes reported by native traders were all based on one
lake. Moreover, Speke claimed his lake as the true
source of the Nile. Burton estimated the level of
Tanganyika at 1,844 feet above the sea (it is really
2,750 feet) ; it was therefore improbable that it could be
the source of the Nile, which, at 450 miles to the north
of Tanganyika, is 450 feet higher. But Speke's Vic-
toria Nyanza is at the level of 3,820 feet above the sea,
and it was therefore quite possible that it might be con-

74 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

nected with the Nile. Speke was confident that it was.
" I no longer," he wrote, " felt any doubt that the lake
at my feet gave birth to this interesting river." This
discovery, however, was somewhat unlucky for Speke.
It brought him at once into conflict with Burton and
Livingstone, both of whom denied that the Nile rose in
Speke's newly-found lake. Livingstone, in spite of in-
consistent levels, derived the Nile from Tanganyika, and
even denied the existence of Speke's lake as a fact.
Geographers, at the time, mostly sided with Burton and
Livingstone ; and the cartographers broke up the Vic-
toria Nyanza into a series of lakes and swamps.

To prove the existence of his newly-discovered lake
and its connection with the Nile, Speke organized an-
other expedition, in which he was accompanied by
Grant. The expedition was well found, carefully
organized and strongly escorted. It left Zanzibar on
2nd October, i860. The caravan consisted of some
men from the Cape Mounted Rifles, and 182 Zanzi-
bari. The expedition followed Speke's old road to
Kazeh, where it stayed two months for the reorgani-
zation of the caravan. After this point the difficulties
began. The porters were so reduced in numbers that
the caravan had to march thrice over every stage of the
journey, and both explorers fell ill. The condition of
the South African men was so precarious that they had
to be sent home, and Speke accompanied them back to
Kazeh. After he had rejoined Grant, the northward

THE QUEST FOR THE NILE SOURCES 75

march was resumed ; but disaster still dogged the foot-
steps of the two explorers. The guides deserted, and
once more Speke had to return to Kazeh to engage
others. He secured two guides, but could get no more
porters, and the caravan had to continue to work for-
ward in detachments. While the force was thus divided
Grant's section was attacked and his men scattered.
With dogged perseverance, the two men steadily pushed
northward. They crossed Uvinza and Usui, and reached
the frontier of Karagwe, a province to the west of the
Victoria Nyanza, now included in German East Africa.

Here there was a sudden change in the attitude of
the natives. Speke and Grant were met at the frontier
by officers carrying the royal maces of Karagwe. The
officers bade them welcome in the king's name, the
explorers were treated with universal respect, the cara-
van was supplied with food at the king's expense, and
everything was done to help instead of to hinder.
Speke and Grant had made an unexpected and im-
portant anthropological discovery.

The explorers had previously been travelling in a
region ruled by ignorant petty chiefs, whose one idea
was to get what they could for themselves by continual
begging and theft. From the country of independent
village communities, Speke and Grant had suddenly
passed to the territory of a chief who ruled a large
country in which his power was absolute, except
where limited by the rules of a feudal system. The

76 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

king, Rumanika, was hospitable, friendly and intelli-
gent. Instead of plaguing the travellers by begging
and bullying, he received them with great friendliness,
and entertained them with princely hospitality. Speke
was amazed at the change, both in the people and the
conditions of travel. He describes Rumanika as " a
model of good manners and good taste, and, in the
truest sense of the word, a gentleman, ruling his
people with justice, mingled, perhaps, with a little
African severity."

The explanation of this startling change in his recep-
tion by the natives, and in the political conditions of
the country, Speke rightly deduced from the physical
characteristics of the Karagwe aristocracy. Speke de-
scribes Rumanika as a tall man, six feet two inches in
height, " with nothing of the African in his appearance,
except that his hair was short and woolly." Speke saw
at once that the king and his courtiers were " as unlike
as they could be to the common order of natives of the
surrounding districts. They had fine oval faces, large
eyes and high noses, denoting the best blood of Abys-
sinia."

Speke therefore concluded that an Abyssinian race
had conquered some negro tribes around the Victoria
Nyanza, and thus established the political system of
Karagwe,

Speke's explanation is essentially correct. The race
in question may not have been Abyssinian, but that the

THE QUEST FOR THE NILE SOURCES 77

semi-civilization of Karagwe was due to the influence of y
a non-negro race, which had conquered and ruled some
negro tribes, is now universally accepted. Speke recog-
nised this fact from the aspect of the people, and he
obtained interesting evidence in its support from native
traditions.

The explorers made a long stay at Rumanika's
capital, where Grant was nursed through a serious
illness. When his comrade could be safely left to the
care of the king, Speke started for Uganda. He
crossed the Kagera river, and from Meruka, on 3rd
January, 1862, he obtained the first view of the western
shore of the Victoria Nyanza. He followed the lake to
the north, crossed Budu to Uganda, and reached the
capital of the King Mtesa on 19th February, 1862. His
reception in Uganda, as in Karagwe, was hospitable :
the day after his arrival some pages drove in twenty
cows and ten goats, with a request from the king that
Speke " would accept these few chickens, until he could
send more."

Speke was greatly impressed by the civil administra-
tion of Uganda, though horrified at the reign of terror
and blood. Executions for the most frivolous reasons
were a daily occurrence. The king, however, treated
Speke well ; and Grant, having recovered under Ru-
manika's care, arrived in May. In July the two
explorers said farewell to Mtesa, who presented them
with sixty cows, a flock of goats loads of butter, coffee

78 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

and tobacco, and lOO sheets of bark cloth for clothing
for the porters.

Illness soon forced Speke and Grant to part company
once more. Grant's health collapsed, and he had to be
left to journey slowly westward, while Speke went east-
ward to see the great river that was said to flow out of the
Victoria Nyanza. On the 21st January he reached the
river, and found it flowing northward. Speke followed
it southward till he reached its outlet from the Victoria
Nyanza at the " Ripon Falls." He then descended the
river valley to the north, rejoined Grant, and the two
explorers visited Kamrasi, the king of Unyoro. They
then returned to the Nile, crossed to the right bank,
and marched across the Shuli country, until they again
reached the Nile, which they followed northward to
Gondokoro. There, on the 15th February, 1863, they
met Samuel Baker and Mrs. Baker, who had come in
search of them ; and in the Bakers' dhow they descended
the Nile to Khartum.

This expedition of Speke and Grant showed that the
Nile flowed from the Victoria Nyanza, but it did not
conclusively prove either the unity of that lake, or that
it was the only source of the Nile. Livingstone still
insisted on dissecting the Nyanza into five lakes, and
asserting that Tanganyika was the real southern source
of the Nile. Speke and Grant, moreover, had themselves
heard when in Unyoro of another lake into which the
Nile flowed, between the point where they had left it

THE QUEST FOR THE NILE SOURCES 79

below the Victoria Nyanza, and where they rejoined it
above Gondokoro.

In order, therefore, to complete the brilliant work of
Speke and Grant, Samuel Baker and his devoted wife
set forth on the expedition which discovered the Albert
Nyanza. They had left Khartum in December, 1862,
in order to meet Speke and Grant, and give them any
assistance they might need. On the way up the Nile,
they passed the steamer with the ill-fated party consist-
ing of the Baronne von Capillan, her sister and daughter,
Mile. Tinn6, two Dutch maids, a doctor, and an Italian,
who were on their way to the Bahr-el-Ghazl, where they
all died of fever, with the single exception of Mile. Tinne.
The Bakers were at Gondokoro when Speke and Grant
arrived there in February, 1863 ; and at the end of
March the Bakers started for the south. They followed
the Nile to the falls near Lado, and then crossed to the
eastern bank. They travelled across the Latuk and
Madi districts, and reached the Nile again at the Karu-
ma Falls. Thence they visited Mruli, the chief town of
Kamrasi, king of Unyoro. Baker had some trouble with
Kamrasi, who was a persistent beggar. However, he
told Baker about the second Nile lake, which he called
Mwutan Nzige, and sent men to guide him across Un-
yoro to visit it. Baker found the lake at the foot of
some cliffs, 1,500 feet high, and so precipitous that he
could not get his oxen down them. He describes the
lake as in " a vast depression, far below the general level

8o BRITISH EAST AFRICA

of the country, surrounded by precipitous cliffs, and
bounded to west and south-west by great ranges of
mountains from 5,cxx) to 7,CXXD feet above the level of
its waters." Baker proved that the Nile flows into
this lake from the Victoria Nyanza, and flows out again
to the north. As it receives many streams from the
south, it acts as a second reservoir for the Nile,

The Bakers' expedition, therefore, demonstrated
the existence of the second of Ptolemy's Nile reser-
voirs. The true sources of the Nile had been found.
But the solution of the Nile problem was still incom-
plete. The unity of the Victoria Nyanza had not yet
been proved, and it was possible that some large rivers,
worthy to be regarded as a continuation of the Nile,
might flow into its southern end. That Tanganyika
could discharge its surplus waters to the Victoria
Nyanza was impossible ; but when the lake levels were
more accurately determined, the Albert Nyanza was
found to be 300 feet lower than Tanganyika. Hence
it was not impossible that Livingstone might be right
after all, and that his favourite Tanganyika might be
connected with the Nile.

These questions were not finally settled till the
journey of Stanley ten years later, but Baker's results
were generally regarded as conclusive. The inferences
drawn from them have proved correct, and the Bakers'
expedition to the Albert Nyanza practically closed the
two thousand years' quest for the sources of the Nile.

Chapter VI

THE UGANDA ROAD AND THE TRAVERSE
OF MASAI-LAND

" Mayo uazako, be ndo uendako."

" Where the heart desires, there it goes."

— East African Proverb.

THE expeditions, which discovered the Victoria
Nyanza and subsequently proved its unity,
reached the lake by what is now known as the
" German road " to Uganda. This route begins on the
coast opposite Zanzibar ; it proceeds eastward across
Usambara, and turns north across the country of the
Wanyamwezi to the southern shore of the Nyanza. It
is the road followed by Speke, Stanley, and the first mis-
sionaries to Uganda. New and Denhardt, however, had
learnt from the Arab traders that there was a much
shorter route, direct from Mombasa to the eastern shore
of the Nyanza. Hence, as soon as European interest
in Uganda was roused by Stanley's visit in 1875 (p. 107),
the attempt to open up this road was eagerly discussed
by geographers. There were two difficulties in the way.

81 G

82 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

The German road traverses inhabited country through-
out its whole length ; thus travellers can rely on food
and water at every stage of the journey. The direct
road, on the contrary, was known to cross wide belts that
are uninhabited, and deserts that are uninhabitable.
This difficulty, however, was a mere question of organi-
zation and transport ; but the second and more serious
difficulty was that this road crosses the country of the
Masai, then the most formidable and dreaded tribe in
East Africa.

That these difficulties were not insuperable was clear
from the fact that the east coast traders had repeatedly
crossed Masai-land. If native caravans, armed only
with a few muzzle-loading guns made of second-hand
Birmingham gas-pipe, and loaded with soft bullets and
trade powder, could successfully travel and trade in
Masai-land, it was surely possible for a well-organized
European expedition, armed with breech-loading rifles,
to explore the country.

Accordingly much attention was directed in Europe
to the Arab trade route across Masai-land to the
Victoria Nyanza.

The first explorer to show that this route was practi
cable to European travellers was a German naturalist
Dr. G. A. Fischer, who was sent out in command of ar
expedition organized by the Geographical Society ol
Hamburg.

Dr. Fischer started from Pangani, opposite Zanzibai

MASAI WARRIORS.

THE UGANDA ROAD 83

in 1882, with a caravan of 120 natives and porters, and
accompanied by 100 extra men belonging to some native
traders. He marched to Kilima Njaro, both the peaks
of which were snow-clad, and early in 1883 he reached
Little Aruscha — a village on the Masai border, previ-
ously visited by van der Decken. Beyond this point
lay Masai-land, till then untrodden by Europeans. The
Masai were, at first, hostile and aggressive, and while
Dr. Fischer's porters were cutting firewood, they were
attacked by some of the warriors or Elmoran. After a
fight, in which two of the Masai were killed, the attack
was repelled, and the expedition was allowed to advance.
After a six weeks' journey. Dr. Fischer arrived at
Ngurunani. )On the nth of May he reached Lake
Naivasha, and was thus the first European to see the
highest lake in the Erythrean Rift Valley. From Little
Aruscha, where he entered Masai-land, to Naivasha is
some 230 miles, and his last camp was only from 20 to
30 miles from the northern frontier, so that he had nearly
traversed the whole of the widest part of the Masai
country. His completion of the traverse was, however,
impossible. Fischer had arrived at Naivasha at the
most unfortunate time of year, when the Masai are
usually massed around the lake. The natives were
troublesome ; they branded some of the porters with
red-hot spears, and resolutely opposed Fischer's further
progress to the north. His store of trade goods was
exhausted, and he was taken ill, so he had to submit.

84 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

He stayed beside the lake for almost four weeks, and
made a careful anthropological study of the Masai. He
began his return journey on June 6th, and safely reached
I the coast at Pangani.

By this journey Fischer showed the practicability of
the exploration of Masai-land, and his extensive scien-
tific collections furnished important evidence as to the
geological structure of the country. He obtained con-
clusive and unexpected proof of widespread volcanic
action in the interior. He found hot springs in the Rift
Valley : he saw a steam column rising from the summit
of Doenyo Ngai, and heard that that volcano was in
eruption in December, 1880. He saw snow on Kilima
Njaro and Mount Meru.

Kenya was hidden from Fischer by the mountain
Settima and the eastern wall of the Great Rift Valley.
So the honour of confirming Krapf's report, as to the
existence of a snow-clad mountain in British East Africa,
was reserved for Joseph Thomson.

Thomson's expedition was organized and paid for by
the Royal Geographical Society. The story of its ad-
ventures is graphically told in Across Masailand.

Thomson's caravan of 140 men left the coast on 15th
March, 1883. He started from Mombasa, and crossed
the Nyika to the Church Missionary Society's station at
Taita, the first of Krapf s projected chain across the con-
tinent. Hence he continued westward to Taveta, on the

THE UGANDA ROAD 85

south-eastern flanks of Kilima Njaro. He was warned
there that it was impossible to enter Masai-land with
less than 300 men, but he made the attempt. He found
the Masai hostile, and returned to Taveta, where he
joined forces with a company of Arab ivory traders, of
whom the chief was the famous Jumbe Kimameta.

The caravan was now too powerful to fear direct
attack, but Thomson was greatly bothered by the
thievish and begging propensities of the Masai, " Even
with our large caravan," he reports, " we had to submit
with the meekness and patience of martyrs to every
inconceivable indignity." The Masai warriors forced
their way into the camp, though it was surrounded by a
double thorn stockade. "In spite of everything," says
Thomson, " they would frequently push the men aside
and swagger into the tent, bestowing their odoriferous,
greasy, clay-clad persons on my bed, or whatever object
best suited their ideas of comfort. After formal saluta-
tions and assurances (with 'asides') of how delighted I
was to see them, begging would commence, and string
after string of beads would be given them in the hope of
hastening their departure."

Notwithstanding these persecutions, Thomson and his
companion Martin continued northward and reached
Ngongo Bagas, at the south-western corner of the
Kikuyu country. Here there was a fight between the
caravan and the natives, resulting in the death of two
porters and of several of the natives. After emerging

86 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

from the Kikuyu forests, *' the next march was a long
one, without water, and ended in a marvellous scene of
disorder and panic. Men fell down exhausted ; lions
attacked the donkeys, killing several. The donkeys
fled braying, kicking off their loads, and, in the darkness,
many were shot down as lions. Men threw down their
loads, and fled for camp, or spent the night up trees.
Lions roaring, donkeys braying, guns firing, shouts and
cries of panic-stricken porters and excited masters, pro-
duced an effect such as I shall never forget, while fear-
maddened cattle broke away from all control and
crashed through the bush."

A three days' halt was necessary to repair the disasters
of that night, and the caravan re-entered the Masai
country and reached ■ Naivasha. The Masai were very
troublesome, and Thomson tells us that for ten days he
literally bored his way through them, continually ex-
posed to their plundering. He then crossed the northern
flanks of Settima, in the hope of reaching Kenya,
which he was the first European to see from the west.
The Masai, however, were in force on Laikipia, the
plateau which separates Settima and Kenya. Thomson,
by tricks, gained a great reputation as a medicine man ;
but for which, he tells us, his progress would have been
impossible. Even with this assistance he was " driven
almost mad with days of worry and nights of incessant
watchfulness."

At length Thomson's trade goods were exhausted.

THE UGANDA ROAD 87

and " as I had no better stock in hand than a couple of
artificial teeth, and some Eno's Fruit Salt, to keep up
my reputation as the Wizard of the North, my position
became doubly dangerous." His food supply also failed,
as one of those terrible epidemics of rinderpest, which
periodically decimate the Masai herds, had recently
broken out. " A strange disease," says Thomson, " had
attacked the Masai cattle, and was sweeping them off in
myriads. In many districts not a head was left, and our
customary mode of travelling was, with fingers holding
our noses, through miles of country covered with decom-
posing bodies. For the most exorbitant prices, we were
able to buy nothing but bullocks, at the point of death.
Of these only small portions were at all eatable, the rest
being absolutely putrid, and even the bones were like
mud. Such was our food in Laikipia." The attitude
of the Masai became more hostile, and Thomson had
" to take French leave at last, and fly in the middle of
the night. We had almost to make a run of it, and
having no loads, we soon put a considerable distance
between ourselves and our persecutors." He fortunately
escaped, reached the uninhabited, northern part of
Laikipia, and began the descent to Njemps, the trading
station near the southern end of Lake Baringo. On the
way down Thomson got separated from his caravan, and
had to find his way alone to Njemps.

Thence Thomson marched westward across Kamasia
and Elgeyo, the plateau on the western side of the Rift

88 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Valley. He entered Kavirondo, and reached the Vic-
toria Nyanza in the district of Usoga, forty-five miles
east of the outlet of the Nile.

Here Thomson was taken ill, so that he could not
reach the Nile. He went north to Elgon, a great vol-
cano, famous for its caves, which he described as arti-
ficial. On his way back to Baringo he was tossed by a
wounded buffalo, but his injuries did not prevent his
marching round Baringo, which he proved to be a small
lake, disconnected from the Nyanza.

While staying at Njemps Thomson's health collapsed,
and he had to be carried on a stretcher back to
Naivasha. For two months he hovered between life
and death in a miserable hut among the bamboos of
Mianzini. His comrade, Martin, devotedly nursed him
through the illness, and carried him to Ukambani.
In that healthy district Thomson soon regained his
health, and on 2nd June, 1884, he arrived in safety at
the coast opposite Mombasa.

The results of Thomson's journey were of great im-
portance. Thomson was the first explorer to cross the
whole width of the Masai country and reach the Vic-
toria Nyanza from the east. He had, moreover, shown
that Lake Baringo was a small, isolated lake, whereas
Denhardt's map had represented it as a long inland sea.
The natives, however, persisted that, in addition to the
small lake reached by Thomson, there was a much
greater lake, which they called the lake of Samburu,

THE UGANDA ROAD 89

and that this was the lake marked on Denhardt's map
as Baringo.

To settle the existence of the great lake of Samburu
was the main object of the third great geographical
expedition across Masai-land. It was commanded by
Count Samuel Teleki von Szek, who was accompanied
by Lieut, von Hohnel. The expedition was organized
at Zanzibar, two years after Thomson's return. Teleki
secured the services of Jumbe Kimameta, the trader
who had helped Thomson across Masai-land, and as
head man of his caravan, he took Dualla Idris, a young
Somali, who had distinguished himself by his bravery
during Stanley's march across Africa, and by his capa-
city as head man of the James and Lort-Phillips' expe-
dition in Somali-land.

Teleki's caravan numbered 300 natives, and was ex-
ceptionally well provided with stores and trade goods.
Teleki took with him 6,000 lb. of beads, 4,800 lb. of
iron wire and cowries, and 80 loads of cotton cloth.
The expedition left Zanzibar on 23rd January, 1887,
and the march inland began from Pangani on 3rd
February. It took the German road to Taveta, whence
Kilima Njaro was explored and partially ascended.
Teleki joined forces with a party of native traders, and
the combined caravans entered southern Masai-land.
To von Hohnel we are indebted for an account of the
structure of this part of British East Africa. The ex-

90 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

plorers passed along Lake Nyiri, which must once have
been far larger than at present, for between the lake
and the mountains to the north-east are tracts of barren,
sandy desert, covered with snow-white natron, which
was deposited by the evaporation of the lake waters.
Beyond Nyiri the country is richer, and the grass-clad
steppes of the Kapte plains include some of the most
populous districts of Masai-land.

On August 27th the expedition reached Ngongo
Bagas, on the south-eastern corner <(8if the Kikuyu
country, where its most important work began.

The Kikuyu country is a narrow belt, some eight-
and-twenty miles broad, extending from Ngongo Bagas
on the south-west, to the slopes of Kenya on the north-
east. The country is completely surrounded by a belt
of dense forest, in the midst of which the inhabited dis-
trict has been cleared. It has an elevation of 4,500 to
6,500 feet, and is well watered by many rivers, which
flow through deep valleys to the south-east. Its soil is
extremely fertile. Owing to the protection of the forest
girdle, and the system of irrigation, the Kikuyu have
been able to cultivate vast plantations, which are un-
usually well tilled and prolific. But before Teleki's
journey this country was unknown. As von Hohnel
correctly remarks, " Before our arrival little was really
known about the land or the people of Kikuyu." No
European had crossed the country. Fischer and Thom-
son had skirted its south-western border, but no tra-

THE UGANDA ROAD 91

veller had been allowed to enter the great plantations,
which the Kikuyu religiously guarded from foreign in-
trusion. Teleki resolved to march along the middle line
of the Kikuyu land, to the southern foot of Kenya.

With infinite trouble friendly relations with the
Kikuyu were established. Teleki and some of the
chiefs were made blood brothers, and the march began.
Unluckily for the explorers they entered the country in
September, the season when the sugar cane is ripe, and
the natives haB»te an abundance of intoxicating beer.
Hence the warriors were drunk, and their insolent be-
haviour led to continual quarrels. For a week the
strenuous efforts of Teleki and von Hohnel and of the
leading local chiefs secured peace between the explorers'
men and the drunken Kikuyu. But at length a native
warrior wounded a porter with a poisoned arrow, and
the Zanzibari fired a volley in reply. Seven of the
Kikuyu chiefs, however, remained with Teleki, and took
sides with him against their own people. In fact, faith-
ful to the obligations imposed on them by blood brother-
hood, the guides used to warn Teleki of any hostile
designs.

After the first skirmish the natives divided into two
parties, of which one was in favour of peace, while
the other clamoured for war. The two factions became
so angry that from argument they soon came to blows.
At one conference, the peace party, suddenly closed
up its ranks, and with a terrible war cry charged its

92 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

opponents, and after a ten minutes' club fight drove
the fighting faction from the field. Thanks to these
energetic champions of peace, and the tact and for-
bearance of Count Teleki, there was a few days' re-
spite, during which the explorers marched through a
district, so carefully and systematically cultivated that
it might have been in Europe. The natives were
friendly, and in return for some strings of beads, used
to supply the caravan with the thorn bushes with which
the camp was defended at night.

The peace, however, was not permanent. On Sep-
tember 20th there was a fight with 2,000 warriors, who
shot half a dozen arrows at the caravan, but fled,
frightened at the noise of the wild firing of the excited
porters. Ten days later, at Masiyoya, there was a more
serious encounter. Teleki's patience was now exhausted,
and he allowed his men to take decisive action. There
was a sharp fight ; the Suahili under Dualla attacked
and burnt some villages, capturing a booty of 19
prisoners, 90 cows, and 1,300 sheep.

This encounter taught the Kikuyu better manners,
and Teleki was supplied with food, and allowed to
continue his journey without opposition. He left
Kikuyu, and early in October pitched camp at Ndoro,
at the western foot of Mount Kenya.

During a month's stay here, Teleki made the first
partial ascent of the mountain. The chief difficulty was
the passage of the bamboo zone, which consists of huge

THE UGANDA ROAD 93

bamboos, growing as closely together as reeds. These
would have been quite impassable, if a path had not
been trodden through them by elephants and buffaloes ;
and, even as it was, " we often had to use the axe, and
to part the bamboo stems, dripping wet with rain, with
our outstretched arms — a most arduous and exhausting
task."

Above the bamboo belt Teleki entered a zone of
alpine meadows, from which he enjoyed the first near
view of the Kenyan snow fields.

From Ndoro Teleki crossed the prairie country of
Laikipia, which occurs as a wide, broad valley between
Kenya and Settima, and expands to the north in a
broad, open plateau. The caravan reached the eastern
edge of the Rift Valley, and began the steep descent of
its terraced precipices. The scenery was so magnificent
that it moved the Zanzibari to raptures. One of them,
Juma, was sent on to explore, and returned "in such
wonderful good spirits," says von Hohnel, " that one
would have thought he had been indulging in too much
tombe (beer). He declared that his delight was merely
at having caught sight of the gleaming surface of Lake
Baringo." The descent was difficult ; hills, which from
the east appeared as mere inequalities of plain, were
found to face the west with almost perpendicular
precipices, from 650 to 1,000 feet in height.

The descent was successfully accomplished, and
Teleki took up his quarters at the now well-known

94 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

food centre of Njemps. The country, however, was
suffering from famine, and the caravan had to stay
there for more than two months, till grain supplies
could be brought from the mountains, and stores of
dried meat obtained from game. On the loth February,
1888, Teleki and von Hohnel started north again, on
the difficult march in search of Samburu.

They passed from Baringo and its fresh green sward
to a desert, where storms buried the camp in sand and
dust. They discovered a mountain chain, which they
named after General (now Sir) Lloyd- Matthews, the
Prime Minister of the Sultan of Zanzibar. The main
difficulty was scarcity of water ; the journey involved
one stage of fifty miles, from a camp where a little
water was obtained by digging in a stream bed, to the
next water at the foot of Mount Nyiro. The guide
engaged at Njemps and some of the porters were lost
here ; but after wandering for five days in the desert
with nothing to eat but acacia gum, they managed to
find the track of the caravan, and thus rejoin it.

From Nyiro it was but a short distance to the Lake
of Samburu, but the approach to it was not encouraging.
' With every step, the scenery grew more and more
dreary and deserted-looking. Steep, rocky slopes alter-
nated with ravines, strewn with debris, which gave one
the impression of being still glowing hot, and of having
been but recently flung forth from some huge forge. . . .
To the north, a single peak gradually rose before us.

THE UGANDA ROAD 95

the gentle contours rising symmetrically from every
side, resolving themselves into one broad, pyramidal
mountain, which we knew at once to be a volcano. On
the east of the mountain the land was uniformly flat,
a golden plain lit up by sunshine, whilst in the east the
base of the volcano seemed to rise up out of a bottom-
less depth, a void which was altogether a mystery to
us. We hurried as fast as we could to the top of our
ridge, the scene gradually developing itself as we ad-
vanced, until an entirely new world was spread out
before our astonished eyes. The void down in the
depths beneath became filled, as if by magic, with
picturesque mountains and rugged slopes, with a medley
of ravines and valleys, which appeared to be closing up
from every side to form a fitting frame for the dark
blue, gleaming surface of the lake, stretching away be-
yond as far as the eye could reach. For a long time
we gazed in speechless delight, spellbound by the beauty
of the scene."

On March 6th the explorers reached the lake, to
find, to their bitter disappointment, that the water was
brackish. Later travellers, such as Neumann, have
found the Rudolf waters palatable and very pleasant
to drink ; but in 1888, either there must have been a
failure, of the rainfall to the north, which caused a
lowering of the lake level, and consequent concentration
of the salts in its waters, or else the mineral springs
on the shore had, just before, been unusually active.

96 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

The lake water was rich in soda ; it not only tasted
like lye, but it effervesced strongly when tartaric acid
was poured into it.

The situation was serious. " The full significance of
the utterly barren, dreary nature of the district rose
before the caravan like some threatening spectre. Into
what a desert had we been betrayed ! A few scattered
tufts of fine, stiff grass, rising up in melancholy fashion
near the shore, from the wide stretches of sand, were the
only bits of green, the only signs of life of any kind.
Here and there stood isolated skeleton trees, stretching
up their bare, sun-bleached branches to the pitiless sky.
No living creature shared the gloomy solitude with us ;
and far as our glass could reach, there was nothing to be
seen but desert — desert everywhere. To all this was
added the scorching heat, and the ceaseless buffeting of
the sand-laden wind, against which we were powerless to
protect ourselves upon the beach, which offered not a
scrap of shelter, whilst the pitching of the tents in the
loose sand was quite impossible."

Teleki, however, was determined to explore the lake.
For a month the caravan marched northward along the
eastern shore, tramping over sand deserts and lava
plains ; the porters daily grew weaker, owing to the
purgative action of the soda-charged lake waters, and
all the cattle died. Half way along the eastern shore,
a clan of " Elmolo " were found living upon two bar-
ren sand banks in the lake ; the two islands together

i

THE UGANDA ROAD 97

are not a square mile in area, but upon them were
huddled two villages of huts, with a population of some
1 50 to 200 people, who supported themselves by fishing.
From these people Teleki got a small supply of food,
and continued his march to the north. The water was
still bad. " It tasted and smelt equally disagreeable, and
to us Europeans was simply undrinkable," says von
Hohnel. " The men were becoming so weak that
Dualla's evening report was usually watu wawili
wamekufa (two men have died)." Some of the porters
went out of their minds, threw down their loads, and
fled into the bush to die.

At length, on April 4th, " after fifty-four days' wander-
ing in an all but uninhabited land, nearly bare of fresh
water, and of vegetation, we were once more in a well-
populated district," for the caravan found a tribe, the Re-
shiat, living in an alluvial plain at the northern end
of the lake.

Teleki sojourned among these Reshiat for six weeks
in order to rest his caravan. He occupied the time by a
journey eastward to Lake Stephanie, a smaller, but still
considerable lake, at a level of some 400 feet higher
than Lake Rudolf. The lake at its southern end was
very shallow, and so brackish that, but for the rain-
pools, the caravan could not have remained beside it.
That the saltness of the water was due to concentration
by drought is probable, as the level of the lake was
many feet lower than it had been when Teleki's Re-

H

98 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

shiat guide had last been there, three years previously.
No satisfactory exploration of Lake Stephanie could be
conducted, as there were no natives near the lake, and
Teleki could obtain no food for his men. An attempt
to return south along the western shore of Lake Rudolf
was also foiled, and that route was first accomplished
by a Suahili caravan from Mombasa a few years later.

Owing to the death of so many of his porters and
baggage animals, Teleki's transport was seriously re-
duced. So on leaving the Reshiat he had to load his
men with burdens of from no lb. to 148 lb. The
porter's proper load is from 60 to 65 lb. Forced
marches were necessary, and the caravan went 235 miles
in sixteen days. At the southern end of Lake Rudolf,
an active volcano was discovered and named by von
Hohnel the Teleki Volcano.

To avoid the deserts on the eastern margin and floor
of the Rift Valley, Teleki crossed to the west. He
reached the country of the Turkana — a tribe of Nilotic
negroes living on the plateau to the west and south-west
of Lake Rudolf. The Turkana attacked the caravan,
and were only repelled after a severe struggle. Food
was unprocurable, and the caravan proceeded southward
on the verge of starvation. Despite the Mohammedan
horror of donkey-flesh, the men had to live on it ; some
wild fig-trees luckily supplied a few days' food, and
enabled the caravan to reach the country of the Wasuk.
The only foods available were wild berries and unripe

THE UGANDA ROAD 99

grain idhiirra). So as rapidly as the feeble men could
march, Teleki pushed southward. The Kerio was
reached, and it was in flood. From sheer weakness
some of the natives were drowned at the ford. Von
Hohnel was taken seriously ill.

Teleki and Dualla roused the disheartened porters to
continue their efforts ; and at length, after an absence of
166 days, the exhausted remnant of the once powerful
caravan reached its old camp at Njemps. Thence, after
a long rest, the caravan returned to Mombasa, where
it arrived on the 24th October, 1888.

By this important journey, Teleki had explored the
last of the great African lakes that remained to be
discovered ; he had twice crossed the Masai country
without conflict with the natives ; and his assistant,
von Hohnel, had mapped the whole length of the Rift
Valley in British East Africa.

This expedition closed the work of the geographical
pioneers in British East Africa. During Teleki's absence
a great change had come over Eastern Africa. When
he left for the interior, the country was a political no
man's land. He reached Mombasa to find himself in a
British Protectorate. The work of the missionary and
of the geographical explorer had led to the usual con-
sequences— the arrival of the European Consul, and the
establishment of European control.

BOOK III

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH CONTROL

" First the missionary, then the consul, then the general."
Oriental Proverb {vide Lord Salisbury).

Chapter VII
STANLEY AND THE UGANDA MISSION

" Work in the world must not consist entirely of the storage in
museums of shells, and birds, and insects ; and the Continent of
Africa was never meant by the all-bounteous Creator to be merely
a botanical reserve, or an entomological museum." — Stanley.

MANY different motives have reconciled men
to the inconveniences of travel in British
East Africa. Krapf believed it his duty to
spread the Gospel news among the East African heathen,
Fischer was a man of science, and felt himself adequately
rewarded by scientific collections and anthropological
discoveries. Thomson and Teleki, in addition to their
geographical interests, were keen sportsmen, the former
referring to his buffalo adventure as " one of those
interesting episodes which enliven African travel and
make the life endurable." But while the geographers
were at work on exploration, a school of men was
arising whose ideal was, in the best sense of the word
political. Their aim was to improve the condition of
the African native.

104 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Samuel Baker was the first of these East African
poh'tical geographers. As a young man he found his
greatest joy in the kilHng of big game, and sporting
interests led him to Africa, where his feats entitle him
to rank as the greatest of the East African Nimrods.
He visited the Nile tributaries of Abyssinia as a sports-
man ; his work there made him a geographer. He
went to the Middle Nile to hunt, and passed thence
to the Upper Nile to explore. There he found the
country devastated by the slave trade, and he realized
the pathos of savage life. He accordingly returned to
Europe, resolved to devote his best energies to the

(rescue of the helpless agricultural tribes of the Eastern
Soudan. From_a geographer he had developed into a
^statesman.

The Austrian Mission had already been at work in
the Upper Nile basin, but its results were disappointing.
Baker saw that such efforts were premature. " Difficult
and almost impossible," said he, " is the task before the
missionary. The Austrian Mission has failed, and the
stations have been forsaken ; this pious labour was hope-
less, and the devoted priests died upon their barren
field." Missionaries can only work, with reasonable hope
of success, where natives enjoy security against attacks
by the slaver and the raider. " The sower knows not
who will reap, thus he limits his crop to his bare
necessities." Accordingly Baker declared " that the
first step necessary, in the improvement of the savage

STANLEY AND THE UGANDA MISSION 105

tribes of the White Nile is the annihilation of the slave
trade. Until this be effected, no legitimate commerce
can be established, neither is there an opening for
missionary enterprise ; the country is sealed and closed
against all improvement."

But Baker also realized the fact, which has been
overlooked by many of the anti-slavery advocates, that
to suppress slavery without establishing anything in its
place would be useless, even where it would be possible.
Slavery is so woven into the social system of Eastern
Africa, that its removal without a substitute would be
the industrial ruin of the country. Intertribal trade is
necessary to the well being of the natives. They want
iron weapons and tools, better domestic appliances, and
more economical methods of agriculture. What is
wanted for the salvation of Africa, said Baker, is
" honest trade." " If Africa is to be civilized, it must
be effected by commerce, which, once established, will
open the way for missionary labour."

Baker therefore offered his services to the Khedive,
and returned to the Upper Nile with a commission to
reorganize the Egyptian provinces in the Soudan,
suppress slave raids, and introduce better administrative
methods than those of the ordinary Pasha.

Baker's rule in the Soudan, however, rare!)- brought
him in direct contact with British East Africa, His
successor, Gordon, at one time intended to annex
Uganda to the Egyptian provinces, and sent missions

io6 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

there. But the influence of both men on British East
Africa was indirect. The real foundations of European
rule in Eastern Equatorial Africa were laid by H. M.
Stanley.

Stanley's work in Equatorial Africa began in 1871,
when he was sent by the New York Herald to discover
whether Livingstone were still alive, and, if so, to furnish
him with fresh supplies. He started on this quest, as he
himself has told us, with feelings of indifference. His
first impressions on meeting Livingstone were undeni-
ably those of disappointment, and for some time he was
more bored than interested. He listened politely to an
exposition of Livingstone's theory of the Central Afri-
can river system. According to this theory, the river
at the northern end of Tanganyika flowed out of the
lake. The Ujiji Arabs, however, declared that it flowed
into the lake. The river was easily accessible, so the
practical Stanley resolved to go and see. He engaged
guides, arranged an expedition, and invited Livingstone
to accompany him as his guest. The two explorers
travelled together round the lake to its northern end,
and found that the Arabs' statement was correct.

This short journey settled a great deal more than the
flow of the Ruzizi. Round the camp fires at night Living-
stone told Stanley the story of his life and wanderings,
and gradually roused in the young journalist a deeper
respect for abstract knowledge than he had felt before.
Stanley returned to the coast, leaving Livingstone

HENRY M. STANLEY, AX HIE IIME OV HIS EIKSl' EXPLORATIONS
IN AFRICA.

I

STANLEY AND THE UGANDA MISSION 107

to continue his explorations to the west of Lake Tan-
ganyika. Two years later Livingstone died, leaving
his work unfinished.

Meanwhile, the interests which Livingstone had
roused in Stanley were growing. After Livingstone's
funeral in Westminster Abbey in 1874, Stanley was
fired with the resolution to complete the work in which
his teacher had fallen. Mr. Gordon Bennett and the
Daily Telegraph gave him the money, and he was soon
back on the East Coast, his life dedicated to African
service.

Stanley's interests were twofold. He was anxious to
solve several geographical problems. He was ready
" to be, if God willed it, the next martyr to geographical
science." But he was still more anxious to ameliorate
the lot of the African native. He had undertaken,
nominally as his second, but probably as his main
object, " to investigate and report upon the haunts of
the slave traders."

Stanley arrived at Zanzibar on this mission in 1874,
he spent seven weeks in organizing his caravan, and he
left Bagamoyo, on the 17th of November, at the head
of a force of 356 men. His first aim was to sail round
the Victoria Nyanza in order to settle the question
whether it were one lake or a group of lakes. He
marched to the southern shore of the Nyanza, taking
with him the sections of a boat, which he launched
on the lake at the end of February, 1875. On the

io8 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

8th of March he started on his memorable circum-
navigation of the Victoria Nyanza. The cruise was re-
markably successful. Stanley proved thereby the unity
of the Victoria Nyanza, and showed that no river of a
size corresponding to the Nile flows into the lake ; he
saw the outlet of the Nile over the Ripon Falls, and he
heard of the volcanoes of Masai-land — low hills which
discharge smoke and sometimes fire from their tops.
Geographically, therefore, the results were important ;
but politically, they were more important still.

To understand the political results of Stanley's
voyage, we must remember one ethnological fact.
South of a line across Equatorial Africa, from the
Cameroons on the west to the mouth of the Juba on the
east, the natives belong to the group of negroes known
as the Bantu. A few of the tribes, such as the Zulu
and their offshoots the Mtabili, have acquired an
organized military system. But, as a rule, the Bantu
live in independent village communities ruled by petty
village chiefs or committees of elders. The villages, or
small groups of villages, are isolated and usually hostile
to their neighbours ; and, as there is no union between
the independent clans, they are weak and at the mercy
of any band of organized slave raiders that attack them.
While Stanley was marching from Bagamoyo to the
Victoria Nyanza, he passed through typical Bantu
districts, and saw no opening for any effective help till
he arrived in Uganda, at the northern end of the

STANLEY AND THE UGANDA MISSION 109

Victoria Nyanza. Here he found a more hopeful
condition of things.

In Uganda the basis of the population consists of
some tribes of primitive Bantu. But these aborigines
have been conquered by a higher race, which does not
belong to the negro stock, and is allied to the race now
dominant in Abyssinia. The conquerors of Uganda,
the Wahuma, invaded the country from the north-east,
and established in it an organized, centralized govern-
ment. The non-negro Wahuma have, in fact, done
for Uganda, what the Romans and the Normans did
for England.

Speke and Stanley have both collected traditions of
the settlement of the Wahuma in Uganda. According
to Stanley's version, the first king was Kintu, who
migrated to Uganda in about the thirteenth or fourteenth
century. He took with him his wife, a cow, a goat,
a sheep, a banana root, and a sweet potato. He found
Uganda uninhabited and so settled there. His wife
gave birth annually to four children of such miraculous
precocity that the girls, when two years old, gave birth
to other children, who, in turn, had families at an equally
early age. Kintu's sons prepared for themselves strong
drink from the banana, and under its influence, indulged
in wild debauchery. At length they threatened to kill
their parent. Kintu, distressed at the wickedness of
his family, withdrew to the spirit-land. He was suc-
ceeded by his son, Chewa, who organized a search for

no BRITISH EAST AFRICA

his father, which continued for several generations.
Among Chevva's successors was Kimeia, the mighty
hunter, whose feet trod holes in the rocks ; he was a
model king, and made Uganda an ordered state. After
him came Nakwingi, who conquered Unyoro, and the
brave Kamanya, who subdued the ferocious Wakedi.
Finally, as the thirty-fifth king after Kintu, came
Mtesa, who was reigning at the time of Stanley's visit.

During his march to the Victoria Nyanza, Stanley
had experienced the usual annoyances of travel among
the northern Bantu. He had had to buy food for his
caravan by retail, two or three pounds at a time, and to
haggle over the price to resist extortion ; he had to be
ever on the alert to protect his camp from the attack
of thieves, and his porters from being speared if they
loitered behind the caravan. During his voyage round
the lake he had a desperate encounter with the people
of Uvuma, then the pirates of the Nyanza.

On Stanley's entrance to Uganda he found the con-
ditions strikingly different from those of the country to
the south. The civility of the natives, their ungrudging
hospitality, and their implicit obedience to the orders
of the king, showed a political system superior to any-
thing among the unorganized Bantu. As soon as
Stanley entered Uganda, while journeying to see the
king, he realized, as he tells us, " that we were about
to become acquainted with an extraordinary monarch
and an extraordinary people, as different from the

STANLEY AND THE UGANDA MISSION in

barbarous pirates of Uvuma and the wild, mop-headed
men of Eastern Usukuma, as the British in India are
from their Afridi fellow-subjects, or the white Americans
of Arkansas from the semi-civilized Choctaws."

Stanley had been to some extent prepared for the
contrast between Uganda and the Bantu countries to
the north by the accounts of his predecessors. But he
expected trouble from the king, Mtesa, whom Speke
and Grant had described as a vain, dissipated, blood-
thirsty tyrant. Stanley, however, was welcomed with a
friendly greeting and a princely gift of food. This
cordial reception was at first regarded as sufficiently
explained by a dream of the king's mother. Mtesa told
Stanley that " his mother dreamed a dream a few nights
ago, and in her dream she saw a white man on this lake
in a boat coming this way, and the next morning she
told the Kabaka [the king], and lo, you have come."

The improvement in Mtesa's behaviour, however, was
not due solely to a dream. When Speke was in Uganda,
it was the rule that there should be one execution daily,
so men and women were butchered for the most trivial
offences. To touch the king's clothes, even by accident,
to look upon the king's wives, to expose an inch of leg
when sitting on the ground, or to disarrange the bark
cloth robe, which is the national dress, were capital
offences. During an excursion that Speke made with
Mtesa, one of the king's many wives offered her husband
some fruit she had plucked off a tree ; for her audacity

112 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

in venturing to offer the king food the woman was
ordered to immediate execution, and her Hfe was only
saved by Speke's intercession. " Nearly every day," says
Speke, " incredible as it may appear to be, I have seen
one, two, or three of the wretched palace women led
away to execution, tied by the hand, and dragged along
by one of the body guard,"

This reign of passion and terror was at an end, and
Stanley found that the change was due to the teaching
of a Moslem missionary, Mulcy bin Salim. Mtesa was
a different man from the monster described by Speke.
" The king's character," says Speke, " was a mixture of
childish frivolity and uncontrollable passion." Stanley
found him a dignified, intelligent king, who ruled his
country with justice, and had learnt to curb his own
capricious will.

Mtesa was described in Stanley's first despatch from
Uganda to the Daily Telegraph, as unlike the negro, and
resembling " the Muscat Arab when slightly tainted
with negro blood." Stanley was captivated at once by
his manner, " for there was much of the polish of a true
gentleman about it ; it was at once agreeable, graceful,
and friendly."

In a more detailed subsequent description, Stanley
tells us that " the Kabaka (king) is a tall, clean-faced,
large-eyed, nervous-looking, thin man, clad in a tarbush,
a black robe, with a white shirt belted with gold. He
has very intelligent and agreeable features, reminding

STANLEY AND THE UGANDA MISSION 113

me of some of the faces of the great stone images at
Thebes. He has the same fulness of lips, but their
grossness is relieved by the general expression of ami-
ability, blended with dignity, that pervades his face, and
the large, lustrous, lambent eyes, that lend it a strange
beauty, and are typical of the race from which I believe
him to have sprung. His colour is of a dark red brown,
of a wonderfully smooth surface."

The political condition of Uganda under Mtesa had
improved, and Stanley found the country ruled by a
feudal system, which, in comparison with the isolated
village system of the Bantu tribes, was an advanced
civilization. The king's word was law throughout his
dominions ; roads traversed the country in every direc-
tion ; causeways had been built across the swamps ;
justice was dispensed through a regular judicial system,
in which the king, aided by his councillors, acted as
the supreme judge ; the revenues were derived from
tribute paid by subject chiefs ; the palace was protected
by a guard of 3,000 disciplined warriors, and was at-
tended by a court of a hundred chiefs, as well armed
and clad as the Arabs of Zanzibar and Oman.

Mtesa had an army of 150,000 soldiers, and a navy of
325 canoes, of which the hundred largest carried a crew
of fifty men apiece.

Stanley at once grasped the possibilities of Uganda.
He saw that it could be used as a centre for the civiliza-
tion of the surrounding countries. His first idea was to

I

114 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

civilize the country by trade. "Oh, for the hour," he
exclaimed, "when a band of philanthropic capitalists
shall vow to rescue those beautiful lands." But Stanley
realized that Uganda could not pay commercially. It
had no Congo connecting it with the East Coast, and
it yielded no sufficient quantity of any commodity
valuable enough to maintain a considerable European
trade.

There was a second motive, however, to which an
appeal could be made. The religious zeal which had
civilized the rough forests of the north could carry sal-
vation to the malarial swamps of the Equator. If,
thought Stanley, Islam could have wrought so great an
improvement in Mtesa since Speke's visit, Christianity
could do yet more ; Mtesa might be " the possible
Ethelbert, by whose means the light of the Gospel
may be brought to benighted Middle Africa," if only
Europe could supply an Augustine.

" Mtesa has impressed me," he wrote, " as being an
intelligent and distinguished prince, who, if aided in
time by virtuous philanthropists, will do more for
Central Africa than fifty years of Gospel teaching, un-
aided by such authority, can do. I think I see in him
the light that shall lighten the darkness of this benighted
region. In this man I see the possible fruition of
Livingstone's hopes, for with his aid the civilization of
Equatorial Africa becomes possible."

Stanley resolved to appeal to England for missionary

STANLEY AND THE UGANDA MISSION 115

help ; and to secure a friendly reception to any mis-
sionaries who might go to Uganda, he set to work to
replace Mtesa's faith in Islam by faith in the doctrines
of Jesus of Nazareth.

Stanley translated the Gospel of St. Luke, and wrote
an abridgement of the Bible in a language Mtesa could
read. In his business-like way he then proceeded to
convert the king. He told Mtesa the story of Christ so
earnestly and effectively that the king renounced Islam,
ordered the Christian sabbath to be kept throughout
Uganda, and promised to build a church. He had the
Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the com-
mandment, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,"
written in Arabic upon a board, and hung in the
Palace, so that all his court might see it daily ; and
as a practical commentary on the text, he pardoned
some condemned rebels at Stanley's request.

Finally, Mtesa begged Stanley to stay in his country
to educate the people. Stanley knew that Mtesa's con-
version was very imperfect, and that the evil habits of
thirty years could not be cured by a few months' work.
To make the conversion complete and real the residence
of a permanent missionary in the country was necessary.
Stanley could not accept Mtesa's invitation for himself,
but he promised to persuade some English missionaries
to settle in Uganda. To prepare the way for them, and
help them when they arrived, he left behind an English-
speaking native Christian, who had been trained in a

ii6 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

mission station on the coast. Then he sent home a
glowing description of Uganda as a mission field, and
an impassioned appeal to Christian England to send
out a suitable missionary. He sketched, moreover, the
sort of man who was wanted.

" What a field and harvest ripe for the sickle of
civilization! It is not the mere preacher, however, that
is wanted here. The bishops of Great Britain collected,
with all the classic youth of Oxford and Cambridge,
would effect nothing, by mere talk, with the intelligent
people of Uganda. It is the practical Christian tutor,
who can teach people how to become Christians, cure
their diseases, construct dwellings, understand and ex-
emplify agriculture, and turn his hand to anything —
this is the man who is wanted. Such an one, if he can
be found, would become the saviour of Africa. He must
be tied to no church or sect, but profess God and His
Son and the moral law, and live a blameless Christian,
inspired by liberal principles, charity to all men, and
devout faith in Heaven. He must belong to no nation
in particular, but to the entire white race."

Stanley's letter was entrusted to Lieutenant Linant
de Bellefonds, a French officer in the Egyptian service,
whom Gordon sent on a mission to Uganda while Stanley
was there. Linant was killed on his return journey,
but the letter was found by accident and sent on to
England, where it arrived in November, 1875. It was
received with coldness by many men, such as Lord

STANLEY AND THE UGANDA MISSION 117

Lawrence, who were of great influence in the missionary
world. Stanley was unpopular, and was distrusted by
English society. In some quarters the letter was treated
as a joke ; the Saturday Review saw the humour of an
alliance between the Daily Telegraph, the New York
Herald and Mr. Stanley on the one side, and the Church
Missionary Society on the other.

But the letter arrived at a time when Europe was
taking an especially keen interest in African work. A
mission settlement for freed slaves had just been estab-
lished on the eastern coast opposite Mombasa. Gordon's
work in the Soudan was being watched with eager
interest, and Stanley's powerful appeal deeply moved
the British public. A great meeting was held in Exeter
Hall ; Mtesa's invitation was accepted ; the necessary
funds were soon subscribed ; and a party of missionaries
left London for Uganda.

The first Uganda Mission consisted of six men, under
the command of a retired naval lieutenant, Shergold
Smith. The party left England in the spring of 1876. It
was delayed on the eastern coast of Africa, and it was not
until May, 1 877, that four members of the party reached
Stanley's old camp on the southern shore of the Nyanza.
There the doctor died, and O'Neill was left to super-
intend the building of a native boat. Lieutenant Smith
and the Rev. C. T. Wilson crossed the lake to Uganda,
where they were warmly welcomed by Mtesa. Smith
returned to bring up more stores and men, but he and

ii8 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

O'Neill were killed by the natives of Ukerewe, an island
on the lake, owing to a dispute over the purchase of
a boat. The news of this succession of disasters dis-
couraged the friends of the Uganda Mission at home ;
but they were inspired to renewed efforts by Mtesa's
welcome, the faith of the English people, and the
veteran Krapf's confident assurance of success. " Though
many missionaries may fall in the fight," wrote Krapf,
" yet the survivors will pass over the slain in the
trenches, and take this great African fortress for the
Lord."

Four more missionaries were accordingly sent to
Uganda by the route up the Nile. In the meanwhile
Wilson, who had been left alone by Smith in Uganda,
had left for the southern end of the lake, as he did
not get on very well with Mtesa. Here in August, 1878,
he was joined by A. M. Mackay, the last member of
Shergold Smith's party, and together they returned to
Uganda, where, after suffering shipwreck and other ad-
ventures on the way, they landed on November ist, 1878.
Wilson left the same month to meet the missionaries
who were coming up the Nile, and Mackay remained
in charge of the Mission station at Mtesa's capital,
Rubaga. Mackay soon acquired great influence over
Mtesa, and, by February 14th, 1879, when Wilson re-
turned with three of the recruits, the position of the
Mission had been greatly strengthened. Wilson and
Felkin returned at once to England with some envoys

STANLEY AND THE UGANDA MISSION 119

from Mtesa, leaving Mackay, Litchfield, and Pearson to
carry on the evangelization of Uganda.

The English Mission was now well established ; there
were three missionaries at work ; the king was friendly,
and though the Mohammedan party were jealous, it
could do nothing against the missionaries while the
king was on their side.

The situation was suddenly changed by the appear-
ance of a new and unexpected factor. Stanley's appeal
to Christian Europe to evangelize Uganda had been
only too successful. For a week after Dr. Felkin and
his colleagues reached Rubaga, the capital of Uganda,
there arrived two Catholic missionaries belonging to the
order of the White Fathers of Algeria.

The newcomers were white men ; they were Chris-
tians ; they had come in response to Stanley's appeal.
So they were welcomed by Mtesa. There was immediate
friction between the Catholic and Protestant missionaries,
which culminated in a deplorable quarrel in Mtesa's
presence at a religious service that was being conducted
by Mackay. Pere Lourdel called the Protestant Bible
" a book of lies " ; Mackay made some remarks about
the Virgin Mary and the Pope. Mtesa was bitterly and
genuinely disappointed. The curse of Uganda had
been faction feuds, in which religious quarrels have
played a leading part. Apparently, Mtesa's main
motive in wishing to Christianize his country was, by
the introduction of a new and peace-teaching religion.

I20 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

to oust the rest. As soon as he found that the Christian
missions divided into two hostile parties, and thus in-
tensified reh'gious feuds instead of healing them, Mtesa
regarded Christianity as useless to him. " Every white
man has a different religion. How can I know what is
right ? " asked the puzzled king.

Accordingly, he told both parties of missionaries to
return to Europe, and there decide which was the true
religion, and, when they had settled that problem be-
tween themselves, they could come back and tell him,
and he would believe them. But until then he had no
more use for either of them.

The missionaries were not expelled, for Mtesa was
still faithful to his promise to Stanley. He continued
to supply them with food and to protect them. But
the chance for the Christianization of Uganda had been
lost. The king was now indifferent; the Mohammedans
could be openly hostile, and Christianity made no
substantial progress during the rest of Mtesa's rule.

Luckily for the missions, however, Mtesa soon after-
wards quarrelled with the Mohammedans. They in-
censed the king by refusing meat from his table, because
it had not been killed according to Mohammedan rites.
The fastidious Mohammedans declared the meat was
not fit for dogs, and many of them were executed for
this injudicious expression of opinion. Hence the
Christian missions gained some ground.

The Catholics claim to have secured most of the

STANLEY AND THE UGANDA MISSION 121

converts, and so the native hostility was mainly directed
against their mission. Their position became unbear-
able, and in 1882 they withdrew to the southern shore
of the Nyanza. Mackay and two other members of
the Protestant mission stayed on, but they had to act
with the greatest caution.

In 1884 Mtesa died, and was succeeded by Mwanga
a son chosen owing to having such close physical re-
semblance to Mtesa, that his paternity was free from
doubt. Mwanga was jealous of the Europeans, and re-
solved to get rid of them. He arrested the missionaries,
and began a persecution of the native converts, three of
whom were burnt to death in January, 1885. The per-
secution, however, was at first intermittent, and the
missionaries were soon released.

Next year matters were brought to a crisis by the
approach of Bishop Hannington along that road to
Uganda, by which, according to native tradition, the
future ruler of Uganda should come. Protests against
the Bishop's choice of this route were made, both in
England by Joseph Thomson, and in Uganda by the
missionaries. So strong was the feeling in Uganda, that
Mackay promised Mwanga that the Bishop should not
enter Uganda by the road, but by canoe across the
lake ; and he sent an emphatic message to this effect
to the Bishop. The warnings, however, were disregarded ;
it is possible that Mackay's miscarried. Hannington
pushed ahead of his caravan with forty men, and

122 BRITISH EAST AFRICA ^

reached the village of Lubwas, on the eastern bank of
the Nile. Here he was detained by the chief, until orders
respecting him came from the king. They came, and
Bishop Hannington and his forty men were murdered
on October 22nd, 1885.

This event closed the direct eastern road to Uganda
for some years. It led to still greater difficulties in the
position of the missionaries in Uganda. Mwanga felt
that he had sinned beyond forgiveness, and the perse-
cution of the native converts was renewed. Missionary
work was ^rendered impossible, and all the Europeans
left Uganda, except Mackay, who remained alone in
the country for a year. In July, 1887, he too followed
his colleagues, and it seemed as if the failure of the
Uganda Mission, which had begun work ten years
before with brilliant promise, was final and complete.

I

Chapter VIII

THE BRITISH EAST AFRICA COMPANY AND
THE STRUGGLE FOR WITU

Hamlet. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,

Or for some frontier ?
Captain. Truly to speak, and with no addition.

We go to gain a little patch of ground

That hath in it no profit but the name.

To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it ;

Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole .

A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
Hamlet. Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
Captain. Yes, 'tis already garrisoned.
Hamlet. Two thousand souls, and twenty thousand ducats

Will not debate the question of this straw.

IN the last chapter we have seen that Stanley's visit
to Uganda in 1875 led to the introduction of two
rival bands of missionaries. Their settlement
altered the political conditions of the country, for the
Protestants were armed with letters from the British
Foreign Office which, they claimed, gave them a semi-
official position. But Stanley's first journey across
Africa was attended by more immediately important

124 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

political results than the foundation of the Uganda
Mission. It was the direct cause of the chain of
circumstances, which led to the division of tropical
Africa among the European Powers. This partition has
had such a profound effect, not only on Africa, but on
Europe, that Stanley's journey must rank with Co-
lumbus' voyage to America, and Vasco da Gama's
discovery of the Cape route to India, as the three
geographical achievements that have most deeply
affected the politics of the world.

At the end of Stanley's visit to Uganda, he returned
to his camp on the southern shore of the Victoria
Nyanza. Thence he turned westward to a region where
the need of civilizing influences was more urgent than
in Uganda. He arrived on the banks of the Lualaba,
which had been previously reached by Livingstone and
Cameron. It was still unknown, however, whether the
river was the head stream of the Congo or of the Nile.
The seventeenth century geographers (see e.g. Sanson's
map, p. 48) represented it as the upper part of the
Nile ; and the nineteenth century authorities, under the
influence of Livingstone and Burton, generally accepted
the same view. Previous efforts to settle the question
by following the Lualaba to the sea had failed. The
difficulties were appalling, but Stanley overcame them
all ; he left the last of his three European comrades
dead upon the way, and with the remnants of his
caravan he reached the Atlantic at the mouth of the

THE BRITISH EAST AFRICA COMPANY 125

Congo. He thus settled the last of the great geo-
graphical problems connected with the sources of the
Nile, and the river system of Equatorial Africa. But
the political results were even more important than the
geographical. Stanley found the magnificent water-
way of the Congo used only by Arab slavers and
their allies for attacks on the weak and industrious
tribes. He saw the terrible plight of the Congo natives,
and returned home to organize a mission for their pro-
tection. Like a modern Peter the Hermit, he preached
a crusade through Europe and America, and persuaded
the King of the Belgians to join him in the adventure.
An International African Association was established,
and Stanley returned to Africa in 1879 to found the
Congo Free State.

The Free State was established from philanthropic
motives. " I am charged," wrote Stanley, " to open,
and keep open if possible, such districts and countries
as I may explore, for the benefit of the commercial
world. The mission is supported by a philanthropic
society, which numbers noble-minded men of several
nations. It is not a religious society ; but my in-
structions are entirely in that spirit. No violence must
be used, and wherever rejected the mission must with-
draw to seek another field."

In that spirit the organization of the Congo Free
State was begun. Stations were built, missions es-
tablished, and a considerable trade sprang up. After

126 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

five years' successful work, Stanley returned to England
for a rest, leaving the country ruled by a band of young
heroes, such as the American Glave, the Englishman
Deane, and the Belgian Coquilhat, working together
in a spirit of self-sacrificing devotion.

The fair promise of those early years led to a very
exaggerated idea of the commercial value of the
interior of Africa ; and this view had wide-reaching
results. Germany was keenly feeling the loss of her
subjects by emigration ; her statesmen were beginning
to realize the possibility of a commercial union of the
British Empire, which would exclude German manu-
factures from the British Colonies. Increasing military
expenditure rendered her increasingly dependent on her
manufactures. German statesmen and commercial men
were accordingly anxious to found a colonial empire
of their own. The Monroe doctrine kept them out
of South America ; Asia was all occupied ; Africa only
was left. Bismarck, regarding English friendship as
essential to his policy in Europe, allowed nothing to be
done that might jeopardize his relations with England.
He damped the ardour of the German colonial party
until, after some fencing with Lord Granville, he knew
that England would only make Platonic protests so
long as English colonies were not directly touched.

As soon as Bismarck's mind was clear on this point,
he allowed a step to be taken which precipitated the
partition of Africa among the European Powers.

THE BRITISH EAST AFRICA COMPANY 127

The German flag was hoisted first on the western coast
of South Africa, and then on the eastern coast, opposite
Zanzibar. German agents had repeatedly visited the
eastern coast, between 1880 and 1885, and made treaties
with various chiefs in the interior. These treaties were
unofficial until after 17th February, 1885, when the
German Kaiser granted his charter of protection to the
Society of German Colonization, which acquired these
treaty rights. England at once protested against any
step which would interfere with the independence of
the Sultan of Zanzibar, or with the vested commercial
interests of the many British Indian merchants who
had trading stations and plantations in Zanzibar and
along the coast. British intervention in the dispute
between Germany and Zanzibar was justified by the
position created by Lord Canning's award, which settled
East African affairs after the death of the Sultan Said
Said at sea in 1856. Said's sons quarrelled as to the
division of their heritage, and the dispute was referred
for arbitration to Lord Canning, then Viceroy of India.
By his award, Zanzibar was declared independent of
Oman, and the East African coast was assigned to
Zanzibar. In lieu of his African possessions the I man
was awarded an annual subsidy, to be paid by India.
This payment placed Zanzibar in the position of a
subsidized dependency of India. Accordingly the
German Government declared that it had no intention
of interfering with the Sultan of Zanzibar, and that

128 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

the territories, which its agents had acquired, lay lOO
miles further inland than the Sultan's dominions. The
Sultan replied that his sphere of influence extended so
far inland as to include all the territory in question ;
that the chiefs who had made the treaties were his
subjects ; and that as he had not sanctioned the treaties
they were null and void.

British influence in Zanzibar was at this time all-
powerful, owing to the consummate tact of our Consul-
General, Sir John Kirk. His influence over the Sultan
was supreme, and he was able to induce Said Barghash
to accept a compromise, which secured a peaceful escape
from an awkward position. The Sultan's claims were
indefinite ; and it was not clear to how much territory
he had a just title. He was persuaded to allow his
boundaries to be defined by an international agreement.
After a commission of inquiry, it was agreed that the
dominions of the Sultan were Zanzibar, Pemba, the
Lamu archipelago, and some smaller islands ; in ad-
dition to a ten mile] belt along the coast from Tunghi
Bay to Kipini at the mouth of the Ozi, and the ports of
Kismayu, Brava, Merka and Magadoxo, with the land
for ten miles around each of them. The territory be-
hind the Sultan's ten-mile slip was divided into two
parts ; the southern portion was declared to be under
the influence of Germany, and the northern was assigned
to England.

This agreement was accepted in 1886, and early in

ZA^z^BAR natives: gathering cloves.

THE BRITISH EAST AFRICA COMPANY 129

1887 the Sultan of Zanzibar granted a concession of
all his territory on the mainland, that lay in front of
the British sphere of influence, to the British East
African Association, Said Barghash had offered a
concession of the whole of his mainland territories to
a British syndicate, but the offer was rejected at the
instance of the British Government. But this limited
concession was now officially approved, and it was
granted on 25th May, 1887. The Association in the
following year was reconstituted as the British East
Africa Company, which received a Royal Charter on
3rd September, 1888.

In March, 1888, the great Said Barghash died. He
was succeeded by Said Khalifa, who, in April, 1888,
granted a concession of the district that fronted the
German sphere to a German East African Company.
The terms of the concession were practically identical
with those under which the British East Africa Com-
pany held its territories. The German forces arrived to
take possession in August.

The annexation was necessarily unpopular among
the leading natives, but probably there would have
been no serious opposition to the change of govern-
ment but for an unlucky accident. The German
Governor of Pangani had taken with him some dogs.
The day he landed, one of these wretched poodles
strayed into a mosque ; the Governor rushed in to
take the dog away, knowing how outraged the

K

130 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Mohammedans would be by this most unholy pro-
fanation of their mosque. This action was misunder-
stood or misrepresented. The news spread through
the town that the Governor had marched into the
mosque with his dogs ; the population rose en masse ^
and the Governor was expelled.

Mr. George S. Mackenzie arrived at Mombasa to
undertake the administration of British East Africa
at about the same time. He also was received with
suspicion ; but by the presence of two British men-of-
war and of some of the Sultan of Zanzibar's troops
order was maintained.

Mr. Mackenzie, with sound judgment, allowed the
Sultan's flag to be retained, and the Arab Lewali to
keep their appointments as governors of the coast
towns. Thus the native suspicions were allayed, and the
Company peacefully initiated its rule in its capital, the
historic city of Mombasa.

The administrator of the British East Africa Com-
pany, immediately on his arrival, was faced by two
difficulties, for neither of which was the Company
responsible. These were the insurrections in German
East Africa, and the injudicious actions of the British
missionaries in the stations near Mombasa.

At this time the British Government — possibly
owing to its reliance on German help in Egypt — was
behaving with great consideration to the German
Colonial party. The Germans found it necessary to

THE BRITISH EAST AFRICA COMPANY 131

blockade the coast of German East Africa to enable
them to suppress the rebellion there. It was mani-
festly useless to blockade the southern coast so long
as free trade was allowed immediately to the north.
So, to help Germany, the English Government agreed
to blockade its own coast and stop the trade of its
own subjects. The blockade, of course, was bitterly
resented by the native traders, who objected to their
trade being stopped in order to punish the subjects of
an adjacent country.

The east coast Arabs were also aggrieved by the
action of missionaries, who systematically used their
stations as asylums for runaway slaves. This question
placed the Company's administrator in a very un-
comfortable dilemma. The British East Africa
Company's motto was " Light and Liberty." As the
administrator of a Company with such ideals, Mr.
Mackenzie was most reluctant, as his first important
official act, to consign again to slavery a number of
refugees, some of whom had been for years resident
on the mission stations. On the other hand, to have
admitted the missionaries' right to harbour fugitive
slaves would have been fatal to the industrial system
of British East Africa, and would have alienated the
Arab support. Sudden interference with the labour
system, on which all the coast plantations were culti-
vated, would have meant the commercial ruin of the
coastlands, and immediate Arab rebellion. The policy

132 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

would have been suicidal. Mackenzie accordingly
decided to persuade the Arabs to grant their freedom
to all the escaped slaves, then resident at the mission
stations, on payment of a moderate compensation.
The Arabs agreed to this arrangement, while the
missionaries promised not to give asylum to any
future refugees. On ist January, 1889, the escaped
slaves were assembled at Rabai, and by the payment
of ;^3,5oo compensation, the British East Africa
Company generously secured the freedom of 1,422
slaves.

The Company's officers by this action gained the
goodwill of the native merchants and planters, on
whose prosperity depended the chance of the country
being able to pay its way. Mr. Mackenzie worked in
sympathetic co-operation with the Lewali of Mombasa,
and the future looked propitious. But unfortunately
the Company's energies were soon withdrawn from
the development of the territory already acquired to
a prolonged and ruinous struggle with Germany for
the comparatively worthless district of Witu.

The original concession granted to the British East
Africa Company by the Sultan, only applied to the
territory between the Umba River on the south and
the port of Kipini, at the mouth of the Ozi, to the
north ; the long tract of coast between the Ozi and
the Juba, and the islands off the coast, were to be

THE BRITISH EAST AFRICA COMPANY 133

dealt with by a subsequent agreement Their cession
to the Company, however, had been verbally promised
by Said Barghash, and the promise had been con-
firmed by his successor. The German agreement
with England in 1886 defined the southern limit of
British East Africa, and across that frontier line the
Germans guaranteed not to encroach. There was
not, however, in the Anglo-German agreement any
explicit clause restricting the Germans from operating
in the territory north of the Tana River, which river
the agreement defined as the northern boundary of
the British sphere.

Immediately to the north of the Tana, in the angle
between that river and the coast, was the independent
state of Witu. It had been founded by a Suahili
outlaw, named Fumo Bakari, who had collected a
powerful band of Suahili ruffians. Under his control
Witu became an East African Cave of Adullam, where
escaped criminals and fraudulent bankrupts found safe
refuge. Thence these miscreants raided the planta-
tions of the surrounding villagers, and of the peaceful
Pokomo along the Tana.

To protect the coast villages from the " Sultan " of
Witu a force of 600 men was sent from Zanzibar in
1885 ; but as some German traders had previously
settled in Witu, Bismarck at once protested against
this measure as likely to jeopardize their commercial
interests. The country was at the same time declared

134 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

to be a German protectorate. A " Witu Company," with
a capital of i^25,ooo, was founded in 1887 to exploit
the country, and strong efforts were made to secure
a German footing in the island of Lamu, which is the
natural port for the Witu district At the end of 1888
the German Consul-General at Zanzibar made a formal
demand for a cession of the island of Lamu. The
Sultan refused, and immediately (January, 1889) offered
Sir William Mackinnon, as representative of the British
East Africa Company, a lease of Lamu and the ad-
jacent islands. The German Government objected to
any such cession, and the matter was referred to the
arbitration of Baron Lambermont, who was then
Foreign Minister to the King of the Belgians. His
award dismissed the German claims to Lamu and
the other islands of the Lamu archipelago, and
affirmed the Sultan of Zanzibar's right to cede them
to whomsoever he chose. This award was given in
August, 1889, and the Sultan of Zanzibar at once
granted a concession of the whole of his territories
north of the Tana to the British East Africa Com-
pany. As this gave the Company the land between
Witu and the coast, the successful administration of
Witu by Germany was rendered impossible.

The indomitable Germans had one last try to main-
tain their position at Witu by connecting it with the coast
to the north of Lamu. On 22nd October, 1889, Germany
proclaimed a protectorate over the whole of the Sultan

THE BRITISH EAST AFRICA COMPANY 135

of Zanzibar's territory between the Juba and Witu ;
and later on it maintained that the islands of Manda
and Patta, which are situated a little to the north of
Lamu, were part of the Witu protectorate, and there-
fore under German control. The British East Africa
Company had already occupied these islands, but
the British Government ordered the Company to with-
draw its agent and flag until its rights were con-
firmed. The question was submitted to arbitration.
The award affirmed the legality of the concession
under which the Company had occupied the islands,
and repudiated the German claims. Accordingly, in
October, 1890, the Government gave the Company
permission to resume occupation.

This award rendered the German occupation of
Witu valueless, and the German Witu Company offered
to sell its rights and properties to the British Char-
tered Company. There was no particular reason why
the British Company should buy them, and the
negotiations were fruitless. So the German agents
resolved not to give in without another struggle.
Their aim in endeavouring to secure Lamu was to
gain the right to levy customs over the trade of the
Tana Valley, which finds its outlet through that port.
There was, however, another way of taxing the Tana
trade. Most of it passes through the Belesoni Canal
a small artificial canoe channel which connects the
Tana and the Ozi. This interesting canal was built

136 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

in order to facilitate the trade between Lamu and
the Upper Tana. The mouth of the Tana is ob-
structed by a bar, which renders its navigation diffi-
cult ; but at a distance (measured in a straight line)
of eight miles from the shore, the Tana approaches
within two miles of a bend of the Ozi. The estuary
of the Ozi is not only about twenty miles nearer
Lamu than the mouth of the Tana, but it offers a
safe harbour to native dhows.

The whole of the commercial produce of the Tana
Valley is carried down in dug-out canoes or " mau,"
which pass through the Belesoni Canal to Kau and
Kipini, the two ports on the Ozi estuary. There
goods are transhipped to coasting dhows, which carry
their cargoes to Lamu.

It was, therefore, as easy to tax the Tana trade at
the Belesoni Canal as at Lamu. The Sultan of Witu
accordingly placed a custom house on the Canal, and
imposed dues. This act was apparently suggested by
the German traders. Supported by them, the Sultan
refused to remove the custom house when ordered to
do so by the British East Africa Company. The
Belesoni Canal was clearly within the territory be-
longing to Zanzibar ; accordingly the Company called
on the British Government to protect the territory of
our vassal, the Sultan of Zanzibar. The Government
not only declined to interfere, but objected to action
being taken by the Sultan, as any such course would

THE BRITISH EAST AFRICA COMPANY 137

lead to friction with Germany. The Company ac-
cordingly resolved to take action itself. It despatched
a body of troops to the district, under Clifford
Crauford (late Commissionet at Mombasa), and sent
an ultimatum to Witu, demanding the removal of
the custom house by December 31st. The German
Consul-General advised Fumo Bakari to submit. Ac-
cording to the chief, he had occupied the Canal at
the request of the Germans and on a promise of
assistance from them ; so this advice showed him that
he had no chance of armed support, and he was com-
pelled to obey.

Thus step by step Germany's opposition to the ex-
tension of the British East Africa Company's sphere
of influence was thwarted by the power of the Com-
pany's local forces and the overwhelming evidence in
favour of the legality of its position. It is impossible,
however, to read the tedious correspondence respecting
the ownership of these northern coastlands without
feeling that the Company, by its insistence, secured
for the empire rights which the Government would
have allowed to pass to Germany unquestioned.

While this controversy had been going on between
the Governments, the jingo section of the German
Colonial party had taken a step which was practically
an appeal to arms. It despatched an expedition across
British East Africa, which, whatever the objects of its
founders may have been, was conducted as a piratical raid.

138 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

News of this undertaking was first received in
October, 1888, when it was stated that Lieutenant
Wissmann and Dr. Carl Peters were appointed leaders
of an expedition which was to march up the Tana
Valley to the Upper Nile, with the object of securing
a German route from the eastern coast to Emin's
Equatorial Province. The expedition was, nominally,
for the relief of Emin Pasha ; but after the arrival of
the news in January, 1889, that Stanley had rescued
Emin, who was on his way back to the coast, the
excuse was not taken seriously. Wissmann, having re-
ceived an appointment in German East Africa, Carl
Peters was given the command, and left Berlin in
February, 1889. At Aden he enlisted one hundred
Somali, who were taken to Bagamoyo, in German
East Africa. The German Government refused to
allow Peters to pass through German East Africa,
and the British squadron endeavoured to prevent his
landing on the British coast. But Peters successfully
ran the blockade through the British fleet, and landed
at Kwyhu Bay on June 15th. He made a long stay
at Witu to organize his caravan, and on July 27th
started up the Tana Valley. Peters at once displayed
his real purpose ; a British expedition under Mr. J. R.
W. Piggott, who was the first Englishman to explore
the Tana Valley, had negotiated treaties with the Tana
tribes, and established stations on behalf of the British
East Africa Company. Peters tore up the treaties when-

THE BRITISH EAST AFRICA COMPANY 139

ever he could find them ; he burnt the Company's sta-
tions ; he pulled down its flag ; he attacked the Pokomo,
one of the most peaceful tribes in Africa, and compelled
them to give him food for nothing. He left behind
him a trail of blood and desolation, for which later
travellers had to suffer.

As soon as the British East Africa Company's ad-
ministrator heard that Peters had effected a landing,
he sent an expedition to the Tana Valley to stop
him. The expedition was under the command of a
young shipping clerk, who was a man of much literary
ability, but who — to put it mildly — was not a soldier.
He felt that his force was too weak to compel the
reckless Peters to return, and so allowed him to pro-
ceed unmolested. He followed the German expedition,
watching it from a respectful distance, until his caravan
stumbled across a raiding party of Somali, from whom
most of the men fled in dismay. A half-caste Arab
rallied a few of the Zanzibari escort, and defended the
stores of the caravan against the Somali with such
courage that the robbers were driven off, but at the
cost of the life of the faithful Arab. After this in-
cident, the caravan was too disorganized to be of any
use as a check to Peters, and it returned to Mombasa.
There the survivors of the gallant men, who defeated
the Somali and saved the caravan, were sentenced to
I a severe flogging, from which, however, they were
saved by an inquiry.

140 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

The collapse of the British expedition left Peters free
to continue his march unchecked. He displayed magni-
ficent courage and great military skill. The difficulties
in his way were serious, but he forced his way through
them all. He marched nearly the whole length of the
Tana Valley, and then across the Kikuyu country on
to the plains of Laikipia. There he was opposed by
the Masai, but in two hard-fought battles the accurate
fire of the Somali escort broke the Masai charge.
As the prize of victory, Peters secured big herds of
cattle, which supplied his caravan with abundant food.
He descended to Baringo, hoisted the German flag at
Njemps, ravaged Kamasia and entered Uganda. All
along his route Peters had annexed the country in
the name of the German Empire. In Uganda he
negotiated a treaty with Mwanga, in the interests of
Germany {vide p. 172), and then hastened home by the
western side of the Victoria Nyanza.

On his return to the coast, however, he found that
his labours were all in vain. A treaty had been signed
between England and Germany, by which the latter
withdrew her protectorates over Witu and the territory
to the north of the Tana, on the understanding that
England should secure for Germany the definite cession
of the territories held in lease from the Sultan of
Zanzibar, and in exchange for the retrocession of
Heligoland,

This treaty of ist July, 1890, closed the long struggle

THE BRITISH EAST AFRICA COMPANY 141

with Germany in East Africa. It left the British East
Africa Company in undisputed possession of the whole
of the vast region between the frontier of British East
Africa on the south, and the Juba River and Abyssinia
on the north. The Company was fairly entitled to
this territory, which, apart from its action, Germany
would have been allowed to annex without serious pro-
test.

But the territory soon proved a useless and expensive
encumbrance, and troubles began at once.

The Sultan of Witu had granted a timber concession
to a German syndicate, and in August, 1890, a party of
eleven Germans landed at Lamu to work it. The Sultan
considered that the Germans had led him into conflict
with the British, and had left him in the lurch when
trouble came ; he was, therefore, very angry with his
former allies. The timber workers were warned at Lamu
against going to Witu ; but their leader, Kuntzel, who
had once been on very friendly terms with the Sultan,
was confident that there was no danger. The party
arrived in Witu on September 14th, and there was a
stormy interview between the Sultan and Kuntzel. The
latter saw that it was useless to attempt working the
concession at present, and decided to return to the coast.
The gatekeeper refused to let the Germans out of the
town, and Kuntzel, fearing treachery, shot the man and
endeavoured to force the gate. The whole party was
at once surrounded ; the Germans fought with magni-

142 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

ficent courage, but the odds were overwhelming, and
only one man escaped to tell the story.

The German Government called on England to
avenge the massacre, and a naval brigade under
Admiral Sir E. Freemantle marched against Witu.
The Sultan assured his troops that Englishmen could
only fight at sea, and under this impression the naval
brigade was attacked on the march, when the Witu
army was easily routed. The brigade forced its way
to an old Galla village on a hill to the south of the
town, and bombarded it. A war rocket set fire to
the huts, and the whole town, including the Sultan's
palace, was soon in flames. The rebels evacuated the
place and withdrew into the forests to the north,
whence they have long continued to harass the country
and defy the British authorities.

To hold Witu against the rebels, the town was
occupied by a company of Indian troops, and con-
nected with the coast by a road and a telephone.
The garrison easily maintained the place against the
natives ; but, economically, the country has been a
disappointment. The climate is deadly ; the trade
dwindled to insignificance ; the coffee and cotton
plantations were a failure, and the expense of main-
taining the Indian contingent was too heavy for the
British East Africa Company to continue in a country
which gave such poor promise of commercial success.
After the angry quarrel for its possession, and the

THE BRITISH EAST AFRICA COMPANY 143

sacrifices made for it, Witu proved a white elephant
which the Company could not afford to feed. So in
1893 it announced its intention of withdrawing its
garrison and abandoning the country. The Imperial
Government had given Heligoland to Germany in
return for Witu, and after this sacrifice the country
could not be allowed to go derelict. The Government
could not prevent the Company's withdrawal ; so to
save the friendly natives from the revenge of the out-
laws, and the loss of the main compensation received
for Heligoland, the Government took over the admin-
istration of the Witu province.

Chapter IX

THE MAZRUI REBELLION AND EMIGRATION

" Vita havina mato."
" War has no eyes."

— Zanzibari Proverb.

THE leading family of the East African Arabs
is that known as the Mazrui or Mazaria.
According to one account of their origin,
the Mazrui are descended from an Arab named Ab-
dulla, who emigrated from Oman, the south-eastern
province of Arabia, and settled in Mombasa at the
end of the seventeenth century. According to another
story, the clan is of much greater antiquity, and is de-
scended from some Arabs who settled on the coast
before the advent of the Portuguese. Whichever theory
be true, the Mazrui have been the leaders of the east
coast Arabs for at least the last two centuries.

Early in the eighteenth century a Mazrui chief
Mahommad-bin-Othman, was appointed Lewali of
Mombasa, and his descendants ruled the coast as the
representatives of the Iman of Oman until 1750. A

MAZRUI REBELLION AND EMIGRATION 145

political change then occurred in Oman, and the Yorabi
dynasty was succeeded by that of the Albusaidi. The
Mazrui refused to acknowledge the new dynasty, and
led a revolt of the east coast Arabs against Oman.
The movement was successful, and successive heads of
the Mazrui family ruled Mombasa as independent
Sultans. In 1806, on the accession of Said Said, the
fourth member of the Albusaidi dynasty, the first
serious attempt was made by Oman to reconquer its
former East African possessions. A long war ensued,
in which the Muscat Arabs gradually gained ground.
They defeated the Mazrui, reconquered the east coast
islands, and prepared to attack Mombasa. At this
juncture two British men-of-war, which were engaged
in the Admiralty survey of the coast, entered the
harbour.

Suliman, the Sultan of Mombasa, appealed to the
British for help, and a treaty was negotiated, by which
the town was placed under British protection. This
secured the Mazrui a respite. Captain Vidal's action
was, however, repudiated by the British Government,
which had no wish to interfere between the friendly
state of Oman and its revolted subjects. The treaty
was not ratified, and the English flag withdrawn.

Mombasa was thus abandoned to the tender mercies
of the Muscat Arabs. It made a stubborn defence,
and capitulated on terms in 1826; twice, however, it
revolted, and was recaptured. It finally fell in 1837.

L

146 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

The Sultan Rashid surrendered on conditions which
were immediately disregarded, and he, the last inde-
pendent Sultan of Mombasa, with several of his prin-
cipal supporters, was left to die of starvation in a
dungeon on the Persian Gulf

The general rank and file of the Mazrui were pun-
ished by expulsion from Mombasa. One party, under
Rashid's brother Abdulla, went south to Gazi, a port
on the coast about thirty miles from Mombasa. An-
other branch of the clan settled at Takaungu, a small
town beside the estuary of the Khilifi, thirty miles
north of Mombasa. Both parties formed semi-inde-
pendent states, though they were nominally subject to
the Sultan of Zanzibar.

Rashid's son, Mbaruk, had been taken south by his
uncle in the flight from Mombasa, and on succeeding
Abdulla as head of the Gazi Mazrui, he resolved to
recover the complete independence of the coast To
secure the unity of the whole Mazrui clan in the fight
for " Home Rule," he attempted in 1865 to conquer the
section settled at Takaungu. This attack was defeated,
owing to the help given to the defenders by Sajd_Said»
the Sultan of Zanzibar, who now, owing to Lord
Canning's award was suzerain of the East African
coastlands.

Mbaruk retreated sullenly to Gazi. On his way
south he called at the mission station at Ribe, where'
he saw New. Apparently he intended mischief, as he

Vm;.\^

MAZRUI REBELLION AND EMIGRATION 147

declined to accept New's hospitality ; and it is stated
that he shortly afterwards formed a plot to capture
the missionaries, who took shelter in Mombasa until
the danger was past. Mbaruk then thrice rebelled
against Zanzibar. He was defeated, and his chief
stronghold Mwele was captured after an eighteen
days' siege. But the irrepressible Mbaruk escaped to
the bush, and after the return of the Zanzibar forces
he avenged the invasion of his country by looting
Mombasa.

In his old age, however, Mbaruk of Gazi had settled
down to a peaceful life. He lived at Gazi, and ruled
the province as the vassal to the Sultan of Zanzibar.
On the establishment of the British East Africa Com-
pany, he gave its representative a cordial welcome and
invaluable support, and there can be no doubt that his
highest ambition was to spend the rest of his days at
ease and in peace.

But circumstances were too strong for him, and he
was reluctantly driven to head a formidable rising
against British rule, and finally to lead an exodus from
British territory.

We have already seen that the Company's first ad-
ministrator, Mr. George S. Mackenzie, had to face a
strong prejudice against European rule, owing partly
to sympathy with the national insurrection in German
East Africa, and partly due to an old quarrel with the
missionaries. Mackenzie, however, conquered this pre-

148 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

judice by tact, and a sympathetic appreciation of the
natives' view of British policy.

But in the latter period of the British East Africa
Company's administration its rule caused great local
dissatisfaction. The first cause of this dissatisfaction
was the conflict between the natives and the mission-
aries.

Krapf's Mission in East Africa had been warmly
welcomed by Said Said, who was then the Sultan of
Zanzibar, and the local authorities. It was felt that the
aim of the missionaries was to convert the heathen to a
religion which had many points in common with Islam.
The Sultan gave the missions land for schools and
stations. But after the establishment of the British
East Africa Company's rule, the Church Missionary
Society's agents at Mombasa devoted their energies
mainly to proselytism among the Mohammedans. This
action was not surprising, for the cultured, educated
Mohammedans could better understand the truths of
Christianity than the fetish-worshipping Wanyika.

As the missionaries were on very intimate terms with
the officials of the British East Africa Company — one
of the Company's administrators, for example, serv^ed
as the Missionary Society's Treasurer — the Company
was regarded as partly responsible for this anti-Islam
movement.

A second factor which led to dissatisfaction with
the Company's rule was interference with slavery

MAZRUI REBELLION AND EMIGRATION 149

though for this the Company itself was certainly not
to blame. Almost immediately after the establishment
of the Company in Mombasa, under pressure from the
British Government, the Sultan of Zanzibar, Said
Khalifa, issued a decree proclaiming the freedom of
all slaves who entered his territory overland. This law
was followed by another enacted by his successor, Said
Ali, who prohibited the sale of slaves altogether. The
latter decree was at first kept secret on the mainland
by the Company's administrator, who certainly acted,
or allowed his subordinates to act, in defiance of it.

But however strongly the Company's local agents
were opposed to the measure, and however ingeniously
they tried to evade it, they could not help ultimately
obeying it in the towns under their immediate obser-
vance. Hence in Mombasa, Lamu, and Melindi, the
new decrees were at length enforced, with disastrous
consequences to the industrial system of the coast. In
addition to the economic consequences of its disturb-
ance to trade, it did even more harm by the blow it
struck at the British reputation for justice. Sir Arthur
Hardinge, in the course of a judicial and masterly
summary of the causes of the Mazrui rebellion, clearly
expresses the shock to native opinion of this unfortunate
interference. " To the native, to whom the European
objections to slavery and slave-dealing appear as fan-
tastic and unintelligible as do the socialistic protests
against private property to the ordinary Englishman,

I50 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

this upsetting of all the old arrangements sanctioned
for centuries by religion and native public opinion
seemed an act of gratuitous oppression, and shook the
confidence which other circumstances, such as the sur-
prising integrity and patience of our magistrates, had
encouraged in the justice of British rule."

For these, and some less important reasons, the
Company's rule was unpopular with the coast Arabs.
But the peace was kept, for it was well known along
the coast that the Company was in serious difficulties,
that its days were numbered, and that the coast would
shortly be again ruled from Zanzibar. A conflict, how-
ever, broke out over the chieftainship of Takaungu in
the spring of 1895.

The Takaungu branch of the Mazrui had been
founded by Hamis, the head of the younger branch
of the clan. Since its establishment after the ex-
pulsion from Mombasa in 1837, and throughout the
period of Mbaruk of Gazi's long conflict with Zanzibar,
the Takaungu Mazrui had been quietly growing in
power and numbers. Hamis was succeeded by his
brother Said, who was followed by Rashid and Salim,
two sons of Hamis. On Salim's death in February,
1895, his nephew Mbaruk was the rightful heir to the
chieftainship.^ But the British East Africa Company
appointed the wrongful heir, Salim's son Rashid, owing

^ The relationships of the heads of the Takaungu clan are
shown in the followinsr table : —

I

MAZRUI REBELLION AND EMIGRATION 151

to his greater friendliness to the British. Mbaruk, the
son of Rashid, who, to distinguish him from the chief
of Gazi, is usually known as Mbaruk of Takaungu,
appeared to submit to the decision. He settled at
Gonjoro, and there quietly obtained control of the
1,200 armed retainers of the late chief A crisis re-
sulted from a personal quarrel between the rightful
chief and the Company's nominee in the street of
Takaungu. Mbaruk withdrew to Gonjoro, and
threatened armed resistance. The Company's puppet
had no following of any importance, and he appealed
for help to England. A man-of-war was sent to the
harbour of Khilifi, three miles north of Takaungu, and
Sir A. Hardinge accompanied it in the hope that he
might arrange matters peaceably. As his influence with
the Arabs is great, the dispute might have been settled
but for an accident. Hardinge went to Gonjoro with
a small escort of Zanzibari and men from the warship.
Gonjoro was found to be deserted, and Mbaruk was
in camp on the adjacent hills. One of the natives was
sent to the British camp, where he was challenged by

I. Hamis

1

2. Said.
1

1

3. Rashid I.

1

1
4. Salim.

1

1
Mbaruk of

1
5. Rashid II.

Takaungu : the

Appointed by B. E.

legitimate successor

A. Co. after the death

to Salim.

of his father Salim.

152 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

the sentries, who tried to stop him. A gun went off
in the scuffle ; Mbaruk's men thought their envoy had
been treacherously shot, and immediately opened fire.

Owing to this misunderstanding, the disastrous
Mazrui rebellion was begun. Mbaruk was easily de-
feated at Gonjoro, and fled to Sokoki, a village in the
forests to the north. His brother Aziz immediately at-
tacked Tanganyika, a neighbouring trading settlement,
inhabited by many Indian merchants, and looted the
bazaar. Aziz was expelled by a force of Zanzibari,
and Sir Lloyd Matthews pursued Mbaruk, who was soon
expelled from Sokoki. He fled south, and took refuge
with his kinsman Mbaruk of Gazi.

It was while affairs were in this disturbed condition
that the rule of the British East Africa Company came
to an end. The Company had failed to make the coun-
try pay working expenses, or offer any hope that it
would do so in the near future, and it was, therefore,
obliged to resign its charter. The causes of the Com-
pany's failure were manifold, but the chief factor was an
absorption in political and philanthropic schemes, which
necessitated an expensive administration, and was
accompanied by neglect of the economic development
of the country. The career of the Company had been
disinterested and honourable, but its ideals were im-
practicable with the resources at its disposal. Its high
motives were forgotten in the obloquy of failure, and
its end was marked by unmerited insult and contempt.

MAZRUI REBELLION AND EMIGRATION 153

The transfer of the administration from the Company
to the Imperial Government was completed at Mombasa
on 8th and 9th July, 1895. Sir Arthur Hardinge landed
to take charge of the country on behalf of the Foreign
Office, and he was immediately confronted by the
dispute over the chieftainship of Takaungu.

He at once warned Mbaruk of Gazi that Mbaruk of
Takaungu was a rebel, and asked for his surrender.
Mbaruk of Gazi came in person, professed the utmost
loyalty, and begged for time. Sir Arthur Hardinge's
demand had placed Mbaruk of Gazi in a very awkward
position. He had no particular reason for gratitude
either to England or to Zanzibar. His father had been
abandoned by England to the Muscat Arabs, and, in
consequence, died a horrible and treacherous death.
The rule of the British East Africa Company had been
accompanied by an interference with slavery, which had
wrought the commercial ruin of the coast plantations.
Nevertheless, Mbaruk had loyally supported the Com-
pany ; he had helped to suppress a rebellion at Mombasa,
to crush a rising in Taita, and to protect the Tana mis-
sions against the Witu rebels. His interests now were
all on the side of peace. He was an old man, his father
having died in 1837. He had a subsidy from the
Government of 1900 rupees a month for the administra-
tion of his district ; and his own residence on the coast
at Gazi, where he lived in dignity and comfort, was at
the mercy of the British gun-boats. He had the alterna-

154 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

tives of surrendering his kinsman, and living his last
days in comfort and dignity as the prince of the south-
eastern corner of British East Africa ; or of refusing the
demand, in which case his highest possible position was
that of an outlaw chief, in the back bush of the coast-
lands and in the Nyika.

He knew, however, that Mbaruk of Takaungu had
been driven to rebellion by an act of injustice, and he
was bound to his cousin both by blood and the Arab
obligations of hospitality. So a direct obedience to the
British demand seemed to him dishonourable. He
wrote a pathetic appeal for peace.

" I do not want war against the Government at all.
I want peace for myself and all my people, and my son
Mbaruk. If anything happens I am responsible. . . .
If you do not want to give me peace, I want permission
to send a telegram and to wait for the reply. I will
abide by any reply I receive. This is what I want from
you. I want peace from the Government, and this is
not a great thing for them to do, and to give me the
time for a reply from England. Alia, halla ; alia,
halla. I want peace ; I do not want war with the Govern-
ment. I am not able at all to fight. I have never done
this when I was in the Company's service, and now also
I cannot do it. I want to be just like before. Do not
you drive me to make trouble with the Government.
Alia, halla ; alia, halla. This is what I want from you.

MAZRUI REBELLION AND EMIGRATION 155

The rest is for you. I will obey the order. Give my

salaams to General Matthews, the Admiral, and Mr.

Piggott.

(Signed) " Mbaruk-bin-Rashid."

A week after Mbaruk's visit to Mombasa the fighting
broke out again. Aziz, a brother of Mbaruk of
Takaungu, had vowed not to shave until he had
avenged his brother's wrongs. He quietly collected
men, and suddenly attacked Takaungu. He forced his
way into the town, and seized the mosque. Thence
he attacked the cantonments, which were occupied by a
force of Zanzibari under Captain Raikes. The garrison
made a gallant resistance, repelled the attack, and
captured the mosque. The rebels were finally driven
from the town, but not until they had looted and burnt
most of it. Aziz withdrew to Sokoki, whence he was
driven by a naval brigade. He then fled south to join
his brother at Gazi.

After this renewal of rebellion Mbaruk of Gazi offered
to allow the authorities to seize the rebel chiefs, but
refused himself to take any part in the proceedings.
Sir Arthur Hardinge and a powerful force left Mombasa
to effect the arrests. The expedition arrived too late ;
the rebels had heard of its approach and fled to Mwele,
a stronghold some three days' march inland. As
the naval brigade approached, Mbaruk of Gazi was
persuaded to throw in his lot with the rebels. He

156 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

abandoned Gazi, and retreated to Mwele. The port of
Wanga was immediately attacked by the natives, and
the bazaars looted.

An ultimatum was then sent to Mbaruk, demanding
the surrender of the rebel chiefs within a fortnight. At
the end of this time a naval brigade, under Admiral
Rawson, marched inland to Mwele, which was taken,
after what the official despatch describes as " two hours'
hard fighting."

Mbaruk of Takaungu and Aziz fled at the beginning
of the fight ; but the gallant old Mbaruk of Gazi only
escaped after the British had entered the boma, and
Zahran-bin-Rashid, the commander of his forces, had
been shot through the head by a Soudanese at the main
gate.

Mbaruk withdrew into the bush, and for the rest of
1895 maintained a guerilla warfare, which caused con-
fusion through the whole country, from Melindi on the
north to the German frontier on the south.

At first the rebels scored some considerable successes.
On the 1 6th October, in an attack on a stockade at
Mgobani, near Gazi, Captain Lawrence was killed and
his force scattered. A month later the rebels attacked
Mazeras, a station ten miles from Mombasa, where the
British East Africa Company had begun a small silver-
lead mine. They also attacked Rabai, and captured a
camel caravan, which was under an escort of Beluchi, on
the Uganda Road ; they killed the jemadar in command,

MAZRUI REBELLION AND EMIGRATION 157

but for some reason they only carried away 20 out of the
700 loads captured.

The rebellion was at first confined to the Mazrui
chiefs. But their success soon gained for the rebels
adherents among the Suahili chiefs and the native tribes
who had kept aloof at first, as the quarrel was over an
infringement of the Arab rules of succession. The
country between Mombasa and Takaungu is under
the influence of a Suahili chief, whose principal town
is on the Mtwapa river, seven miles north of Mom-
basa. The chief was believed to be secretly aiding the
Mazrui, and he was summoned to Mombasa to answer
for his conduct. Though he was an old man, eighty
years of age, he declined to obey, and openly joined
the rebels.

This was the signal for a general rising of the East
Coast natives, and practically the whole of the British
East African coast lands were in rebellion, and the
British power confined to the coast ports.

The situation was now very serious, as it had quite
outgrown the power of the local forces. The naval
brigade could carry any position it attacked, but its
movements were necessarily slow. It could not follow up
a success, so as to inflict serious loss upon the rebels, and it
could not defend friendly villages from attack. An Indian
contingent was therefore called for. Three hundred men,
under Captain Barrett and Lieutenant Scott, landed on
30th December, 1895. The first duty of the Indian

158 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

contingent was to clear the immediate neighbourhood
of Mombasa. A fortnight after its arrival it attacked
Mtwapa. The landing was steadily resisted, and there
was a three hours' engagement between the boats and
the natives on shore. The rebel casualties numbered
eighteen, and two of the attacking force were wounded.
The rebels then withdrew to a boma, some miles to the
north. The Indian troops followed in pursuit next day.
The column was purposely misled by the guides ; it
marched for twenty-two hours across waterless country,
and finally arrived at a village on the shore, where all the
wells had been filled in. Luckily, near the village there
is a cocoa-nut plantation, which saved the force from dis-
aster. The milk of the nuts staved off thirst starvation
until water could be found. The pursuit was abandoned,
and the contingent returned directly to Mombasa.

The rebels followed the retreating column, and on
2ist January actually attacked Freretown; but, owing to
the defence of the Indian and Soudanese troops, the
attack was repelled.

A second expedition against the rebel boma to the
north was then organized. It was successfully accom-
plished, and a small garrison, under a sepoy officer,
established in the district. The safety of Mombasa
and its adjacent mission stations was thus secured.

Two columns were then organized to march through
the country and disperse the rebels. The northern
column was sent out to drive the rebels southward, and

MAZRUI REBELLION AND EMIGRATION 159

prevent the rebellion spreading among the northern
coast tribes. The rebels, however, succeeded in eluding
the column, and, while it was working south, they fell on
Melindi, burnt 400 houses in the town, looted some
Indian shops, and killed several people.

This success broke the confidence of the Giriama, the
most powerful tribe on the coast of British East Africa.
They had previously held aloof from rebellion, but now
made a demonstration against the village of Sandia.
Had they done more the consequences would have been
disastrous. But Sir A. Hardinge held a conference with
the Giriama elders, and they swore fidelity on their
sacred animal, the hyena.

The southern column had meanwhile been operating
against Mbaruk, and chasing him from post to post.
His country was devastated, and his chief villages
destroyed. But his forces were not seriously injured,
and, as soon as the column began its return march to
the coast, they harassed the rearguard. The southern
column then invaded Shimba, a hilly country south
of Mombasa. A station was established, and an
Indian garrison left under the command of Lieutenant
Scott. Although the rebels had been twice defeated
(2nd and 6th of March), no sooner had the main force
returned to Mombasa than the post was attacked.

The Shimba expedition was undertaken at the be-
ginning of March, and it showed that the forces avail-
able were still insufficient to cope with the rebellion.

i6o BRITISH EAST AFRICA

The civil authorities had already realized this fact,
and an Indian regiment was on the way to Mombasa.
It landed on March 15th, and its commander, Colonel
Pearson, at once began a systematic campaign to
separate the different rebel centres, and crush them
in detail. His plan of campaign was to establish a
chain of forts westward from Mombasa along the
Uganda Road, and another chain along the southern
frontier. So soon as these stations were fairly estab-
lished, Colonel Pearson advanced to attack Mbaruk's
main force, which was assembled in the Kamari
Forest, and to clear the whole country between the
Uganda Road and the German frontier. On April
4th the columns were ready to storm Mweni, a village
in the Kamari Forest. The advance was begun at
2 a.m., the village was reached before dawn, and
triumphantly carried by storm. Its garrison was
found to consist of one cripple, an old woman. This
battle was typical of the rest. Colonel Pearson's force
was too powerful for any opposition to be offered ;
he sent out numerous divisions, which scoured the
country, chasing the rebels from village to village,
and destroying the plantations. At length Mbaruk
saw the struggle was hopeless. So he and his men
crossed the frontier into German territory. They at
once surrendered (April 20th) to Major von Wissmann,
who gladly received the refugees and settled them in
Usaramo, a fertile but then uninhabited district.

* 11' !

^4\

f!;:PI^;;l

''I'll ' ■ ' I ^^3^'''^

'Sir- ■^i^'E?*-*

MAZRUI REBELLION AND EMIGRATION i6i

By the end of April the Mazrui rebellion was thus
at an end. But the victory was gained at the cost of
wholesale devastation and disorganization. The
greatest loss, however, was the emigration of the
most intelligent and profitable section of the East
Coast natives, a heavy price in a country whose main
need is population.

A village elder was asked whether his people had
suffered much by the war. " Alas ! " he replied, " when
two elephants meet in conflict, what becomes of the
grass beneath their feet ? "

M

Chapter X

HOW THE MISSIONARIES RETURNED TO
UGANDA

" Watu waliambiwa ' Kakaeni ' ; hawa kuambiwa ' Kashin-
daneni.' "

" People were told ' Go and dwell ' ; they were not told ' Go
and struggle together for the mastery.' "

— Suahili Proverb ( W. E. Taylor).

IT is now time to turn from the coast lands to
the progress of events in the interior. We have
seen in a previous chapter what keen interest
in the hinterland was aroused by Stanley's appeal
for missionaries to Uganda, and how, in response to
that appeal, parties of Protestant and Catholic mis-
sionaries entered the country. By their quarrels they
lost Mtesa's confidence, and the missions made no
effective progress during his lifetime.

Mtesa died in 1884, and his successor, Mwanga,
being bound by no pledges to the missions, prepared
to suppress them. He began fitfully to persecute the
native converts, and to harass the missionaries.
Mwanga's murder of Bishop Hannington, who was

THE MISSIONARIES RETURN TO UGANDA 163

approaching Uganda by a road which native super-
stition closed to Europeans, led to more active
measures against the missionaries. Their position
became so precarious that they all withdrew and
established stations at the southern end of the
Victoria Nyanza, to await a more favourable oppor-
tunity for work in Uganda.

In 1888 Mwanga prepared for a general massacre
of all his Christian and Mohammedan subjects. They
were to be deported to an uninhabited island, and
there left to starve. The primitive paganism was to
be re-established as the universal religion of Uganda.
News of the project leaked out. The two threatened
parties joined forces. They rebelled suddenly and
successfully. Mwanga fled, and his brother, Kiwewa,
was proclaimed king in his stead. The victors
promptly quarrelled over the division of the spoil.
The Christians were the weaker party, so they fled to
the province of Ankori ; and Kiwewa reigned as the
nominee of the Mohammedans. He quarrelled with
his supporters, and, in a fit of rage, killed the Moham-
medan leader, Mujasi, with his own hands. In re-
venge for this murder the Mohammedans stormed the
palace. Kiwewa escaped to the tomb of his father
Mtesa, but he was denied sanctuary there, and fled
from Uganda. The Mohammedans then placed upon
the throne Kalema (or Karema), a third son of
Mtesa.

i64 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

While these events were happening in Uganda,
Mwanga had not been idle. He had taken refuge in
the French mission station at Bukumbi, on the
southern side of the lake. He professed repentance
of his sins, and conversion to the Roman Catholic
faith. He was forgiven by the Fathers, and insti-
gated by them to attempt the recovery of his throne.
The Protestant missionaries, distrusting Mwanga's sin-
cerity, and fearing that his murder of their Bishop
would permanently estrange him from their side,
either strongly opposed the scheme or remained
neutral. The native Protestants, however, rallied to
Mwanga, and joined in a general appeal to him to
return.

Mwanga's main difficulty was his poverty in arms
and ammunition. The supplies he had previously
collected were all in the hands of his foes. The im-
portation of war material into Equatorial Africa for
sale to natives was forbidden by the Berlin Act ; and
at that time this regulation was being rigorously en-
forced by both the Germans and the British.

Without weapons nothing could be done. So
Mwanga and his allies called to their aid an ex-
missionary of the name of Stokes. This famous
trader played such an important part in the struggle
for Uganda that some notice of him is necessary,
Stokes was a man who had an exceptionally interest-
ing career. He went to East Africa on the staff of

THE MISSIONARIES RETURN TO UGANDA 165

the Church Missionary Society, and he was sent in-
land to the country of the Wanyamwezi. He was an
industrious man, and undertook trading as well as
his official work. To strengthen his influence among
the tribe, he entered into a domestic alliance with the
daughter of a leading Mnyamwezi chief. His trade
prospered. His methods were astute,,and white ivory
was not the only product in which he is said to have
dealt. Stokes' English wife died, and he subsequently
took his Mnyamwezi concubine to Zanzibar, and there
formally married her. This proceeding was against the
rules of the Church Missionary Society. According
to Mr. Inderwick, who appeared as counsel for that
Society in some subsequent proceedings in the Probate
Court, since Stokes' marriage with a heathen woman
was deemed inconsistent with his position as a mis-
sionary, his connection with the Missionary Society
came to an end. The Church Missionary Society
was probably glad of an excuse to dismiss Stokes ;
but the devil must have smiled, when Stokes was ex-
pelled from the missionary service for the most honour-
able incident in his record.

Stokes continued trading, and one of his enter-
prises was his alliance with Mwanga and the French
priests for the invasion of Uganda in 1889. His sub-
sequent career may be briefly related. As Unyamwezi
was included in German East Africa, Stokes took
service as an officer of the German Government. In

166 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

1894 he started with a caravan of 1,000 armed men
to found a station in the country to the north-west of
German East Africa. He suggested to the British
authorities that he should be allowed to capture
Wadelai ; but his offer was emphatically rejected.
Sir Henry Colvile, who was then the Administrator
of British East Africa, informed Stokes by letter (June,
1894) that he regarded those " 1,000 armed men with
uneasiness," and remarked, " I wish to warn you that
I can only treat any unauthorized warlike operations
as acts of piracy."

Stokes halted on the British frontier, where he had
an acrimonious correspondence with the British officer
instructed to watch his proceedings. The officer told
Stokes that he could not " entertain any negotiations
with a large armed force, which has looted and mur-
dered in British territory." He therefore abandoned
the idea of entering British East Africa, and marched
into the Congo Free State. He went westward to
join his ally, Hamadi-ben-Ali, better known as Kibonge,
who had murdered Emin Pasha, and was then in re-
bellion against the Free State. Stokes wrote to him,
" My dear Kibonge, send me an intelligent messenger,
and one who is well acquainted with the truth. I can
help. Do not be afraid of being killed. You shall
not die. If you have need of me, send me a mes-
senger quickly, and I will immediately come to you."
Kibonge's reply, appealing to Stokes for immediate

THE MISSIONARIES RETURN TO UGANDA 167

help against the Belgians, came too late. Kibonge
was captured and hung for the murder of Emin Pasha.
Stokes, hastening to Kibonge's aid with a small ad-
vanced party, was arrested by Captain Henry. In his
possession were found the piracy threat of Sir Henry
Colvile, and letters proving both Stokes' complicity in
the Arab Congo rebellion and his trade in arms with
the rebels. Stokes was court-martialled and hung at
Lindi by Major Lothaire, on 15th January, 1895.

Lothaire's conduct of the trial was irregular, as it
included several technical errors. The most serious
was the inconsistency that Stokes had been refused
right of appeal as a soldier, and then was hung instead
of being shot. Lothaire was accordingly tried for
murder at Boma and acquitted. Captain Arthur, the
British representative at the trial, in his official report
concluded that Lothaire had " displayed undue haste
and precipitation in the trial and execution of Mr.
Stokes," but that Lothaire was " rightfully acquitted."

After this brief sketch of Stokes' career, it will be
understood that Mwanga could not have applied to a
more suitable agent. Stokes was the leading expert in
the illicit gunpowder trade, and with his cosmopolitan
sympathies was equally ready to help English, Germans,
French, Waganda, and Arabs. He undertook, accord-
ing to his own account, in return for between seventeen
and eighteen tons of ivory (worth more than ;^20,ooo),

i68 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

to supply Mwanga and the French party with the
necessary arms and ammunition. The time seemed
favourable for the attempt, as Kalema's rule was un-
popular in Uganda. Kalema had heard of the projected
invasion, and of a plot in the capital for his deposition ;
and, as it is the rule in Uganda that the king must be
a member of the hereditary royal family, Kalema did his
best to render himself indispensable by a massacre of
his relatives. Then he slew the old Katikiro, whom
Emin had described as "the one gentleman in Uganda"
who, through all the religious changes in his country,
had remained a firm adherent of the national pagan-
ism.

These savage acts horrified many of Kalema's sup-
porters, and facilitated the return of the exiled king.
Mwanga sailed from Bukumbi in Stokes' boat, landed
at the mouth of the Kagera River, and raised the
standard of civil war. He was defeated, and fled to
the Sesse Islands, where he was welcomed by the
inhabitants. As their canoes were supreme on the lake,
Mwanga was safe. With the aid of the Wa-Sesse
Mwanga captured Bulingugwe, a small island seven
miles from Rubaga, the capital of Uganda. A further
attempt on the mainland, though temporarily successful,
ultimately failed. Stokes was sent down to the coast
for more arms and ammunition, while Mwanga main-
tained his position at Bulingugwe, Here the king was
joined by some of the English missionaries, and

THE MISSIONARIES RETURN TO UGANDA 169

members of both missions endeavoured to gain Euro-
pean assistance for Mwanga.

With the irony of fate, which in East African history
is especially malicious, both parties invited into Uganda
the force to which ultimately it was most bitterly
opposed. Mackay appealed to Emin to bring in thej
Soudanese, the very step for which later on the Pro-
testants so bitterly denounced Lugard. The Catholics,
with Mwanga's authority, did their best to persuade the
British East Africa Company to occupy Uganda. One
of the Company's exploring caravans, under Mr. F. J,
Jackson, during the summer of 1889 reached the eastern
coast of the Nyanza. Pere Lourdel wrote to Mr.
Jackson to say that Mwanga " offers you, in addition to
the monopoly of commerce in Uganda, a present of one
hundred frasila of ivory, which he will give you when he
is returned to the throne. He also takes upon himself
the provisioning of your men, and accepts your flag.
For our part, we Catholic missionaries shall be very
glad and very grateful to take advantage of the pro-
tection which you will be able, I hope, to grant to the
missionaries and Christians of this country, if you
succeed in driving out the Mussulman."

Neither appeal was successful. Emin did not get his
invitation (dated 25th August, 1889) until June, 1890;
while Jackson had been ordered not to enter Uganda,
as the Company feared to compromise the missionaries
since Mwanga might think the caravan had been sent
to punish him for the death of Hannington.

170 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Jackson's orders were so positive that not even the
offer of a trade monopoly in Uganda could tempt him
to enter the country, and he continued his geographical
explorations to the north-east. Mwanga therefore had
to wait until January, 1890, when Stokes came back
from the coast with supplies. The war was then at once
renewed ; the Catholic and Protestant Waganda swore
fidelity to each other, if they were victorious, and an
immediate attack on Kalema was made. The rival
forces met at Bulwanyi on the nth February; the
Mohammedans were routed, and Mwanga re-entered
the capital in triumph. Kalema fled to Unyoro, where
he subsequently died of smallpox.

Both parties of missionaries at once returned to
Uganda. According to Mackay, Pere Lourdel stated
that the Protestant missionaries were not to be allowed
to return, as they had refused to help Mwanga when in
exile. This decision, if ever made, was, however, never
enforced ; but the king was no doubt prejudiced against
the Protestants, as he had murdered their bishop, and
they had refused to take part in his war. He felt,
however, too insecure to dispense with the help of either
of the Christian parties, and permitted the English
mission to re-occupy its former station.

In February, 1890, there were therefore four parties
in Uganda — Catholic, Protestant, Mohammedan, and
Pagan. The Catholics were supreme at Court, owing

THE MISSIONARIES RETURN TO UGANDA 171

to the leading share they had taken in Mwanga's
restoration, and because the king was nominally a
member of their Church. The Protestants distrusted
the king, and were jealous of the Catholic supremacy.
The Mohammedans, under Kalema, were still powerful,
owing to their military organization ; but numerically
they were weak, and they were under the cloud of
recent defeat. Finally, there was the old Pagan party,
with which in his heart Mwanga most warmly sympa-
thised. To add to the complication, an expedition
under Carl Peters suddenly arrived at the capital, and l
negotiated a political treaty with Mwanga in the
interests of Germany.

Peters, during his raid across Northern British East
Africa, reached Kavirondo, and during Jackson's
absence visited the British East Africa Company's
camp there. The Somali in charge showed Peters the
letter in which Pere Lourdel appealed to Jackson to
enter Uganda and help Mwanga. Peters saw his
chance.

He at once wrote to Mwanga and the missionaries,
offering his aid, and marched to Uganda. He crossed
the Nile on February 20th, 1890. He was met by a
letter from Mwanga, written by the Rev. E. C. Gordon,
in which he was invited to Mengo, where he was wel-
comed by the king and the missionaries.

Peters' idea was to make Uganda and the Upper Nile
into a neutralized state, like that of the Congo. It was

172 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

to be open to all Europeans alike. This policy was of
course acceptable to the French Fathers, and they
supported it warmly. A treaty was signed on ist
March, 1890, between Peters, on behalf of the German
Emperor, and Mwanga, by which the latter accepted
" the decrees of the Berlin Treaty (Congo Act) of
February, 1885, so far as they have reference to
Buganda and its tributary countries. He throws open
these countries to the subjects of His Majesty the
German Emperor, as to all other Europeans. He
guarantees to the subjects of His Majesty the German
Emperor, as to all other Europeans who may wish to
avail themselves of it, entire freedom of trade, and the
right of travel and settlement in Buganda and all
tributary states."

The English missionaries protested against the treaty,
on the ground that Mwanga had already accepted the
British protectorate. But the king replied that he had
only offered to do so if Jackson helped to restore him
to the throne. As he had not been helped by the
British, he would not give them the monopoly he had
conditionally offered. He now preferred to remain
independent, and welcome alike Germans, French, and
English.

The time when the neutralization of Uganda had
been possible was, however, now past. Mwanga was
not unreasonable in considering that his offer had been
rejected, and had therefore lapsed. But an agreement

THE MISSIONARIES RETURN TO UGANDA 173

had been already signed in Europe between England
and Germany, which placed Uganda in the British
sphere. On Peters' return to the coast, he found that
his treaty was invalid.

The British East Africa Company was therefore at
liberty to occupy and administer Uganda. Jackson
accordingly crossed the Nile, and reached Mengo on
14th April, 1890. He signed a treaty with Mwanga, by
which the king bowed to the Anglo-German agreement,
»and Uganda was definitely included in British territory.
Jackson shortly afterwards returned to the coast, leav-
ing his comrade, Ernest Gedge, as the Company's
representative.

Gedge had a very uncomfortable position. The king
would have preferred the neutralization arrangement
made with Peters, and Gedge was personally unpopular
with both the missionary parties.

The country was simmering with discontent and
faction jealousy, and a renewal of civil war seemed
imminent. A strong man was wanted in Uganda ; and,
luckily for the British interests, the right man to deal
with the situation was rapidly approaching.

On December i8th, 1890, a badly equipped caravan
of some two hundred and seventy men marched into
Rubaga under the command of Captain F. D. Lugard.

Chapter XI
HOW LUGARD SAVED UGANDA

"Mother earth! are the heroes dead?

Do they thrill the souls of the years no more ?
Are the gleaming snows and the poppies red
All that is left of the brave of yore ?

" Are there none to fight as Theseus fought —
Far in the young world's misty dream ?
Or to teach as the grey-haired Nestor taught ?
Mother earth ! are the heroes gone ? "

IN 1885 Captain (now General Sir) F. D. Lugard,
D.S.O., was entitled to long leave from his
regiment, and he resolved to devote it to work
in Africa as a volunteer military missionary. It was
his ambition, to use his own words, "to embark in some
useful undertaking in Africa — if possible, in connection
with the suppression of the slave trade." So, with
;^50 in his pocket, he sailed from Gibraltar to Naples,
where he offered his services to the Italians in their
Abyssinian enterprise. Finding no opening there, he
proceeded to Egypt, but the Egyptian Soudanese
policy was closed, and again Lugard's services were
rejected. His money was running low, and he felt

HOW LUGARD SAVED UGANDA 175

doubtful whether it would suffice to take him to any
field where he could be of use. So he travelled down
the Red Sea as a deck passenger on an Italian timber
ship. He herded with Arab coolies and Neapolitan
roughs, slept on deck among the timber, and had his
meals of broken victuals with the Italian cook in the
galley beside the engines. He landed at Massowah,
and again offered his services to the Italians ; but he
was again refused. He crossed to Aden, took ship to
Quilimane, and went up the Zambesi to help the
African Lakes Company in its fight with the Nyasa
slavers. His services were here enthusiastically ac-
cepted, and he spent twelve months in the campaign.
Peace, however, was proclaimed before the slavers had
been completely suppressed, and Lugard returned to
England to recover from a severe wound. In Novem-
ber, 1889, he was back again on the East Coast, and
Mr. G. S. Mackenzie, the administrator of the recently-
established British East Africa Company, offered him
a post on his staff.

Lugard urged the Company to establish a number
of small trading stations, which should be gradually
extended inland, from a base on the sea. Thus an
effectively occupied and administered wedge would be
thrust into the interior. The policy was approved,
and Lugard was commissioned to carry it into effect.
He founded a chain of posts from Mombasa to the
fort at Machakos, which subsequently, under the care

176 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

of its superintendent, Mr. J. Ainsvvorth, became the
most successful and best administered station in British
East Africa.

In May, 1890, Lugard was back at Mombasa, where
he set to work on a scheme for the organization of
the freed slaves on the coast. There had been a
deplorable feud between the Arabs and the missionaries
on the slavery question. The missionaries insisted on
using their stations as asylums for fugitive slaves, and
this proceeding, which was illegal while the coast was
under Arab law, naturally roused the enmity of the
leading Arab landowners. Lugard, in spite of his
very advanced views on the slavery question, realized
that the commercial prosperity of the coast planters
is essential to the prosperity of British East Africa,
and that some allowance should be made for the Arab
point of view. He treated the slave-owners with such
tact that he secured the enthusiastic co-operation of
the Lewali of Melindi and some other leading Arabs
in a plan for the solution of the freed-slave difficulty.
His work was interrupted by sudden orders to go
inland and found a station at the important caravan
centre of Ngongo Bagas. He started with a caravan
of 150 men and a party of comrades, who, inspired
by Lugard's enthusiasm, all made their mark in East
African history. The second in command was George
Wilson, who ruled Uganda in the troubled time of the
mutiny. F. de Winton, who died in Toru, and Grant,

Photo byl

yUUicll &■ Fry.

GEN. !•". D. LUC.AKU.

HOW LUGARD SAVED UGANDA 177

now the senior resident and one of the most experi-
enced officers in Uganda, were both on Lugard's staff.
The famous Somali, Dualla Idris, was the headman of
the caravan, and Shukri Aga, one of Gordon's Soudan-
ese officers, who had returned to the coast with Stanley
and Emin, was in charge of the escort. Lugard's force
was soon reduced by the desertion of a third of the
men, but it was raised to 450 by fresh instalments.
It reached Machakos, and Lugard advanced some fifty
miles further to the north-west, where he built a new
station among the Kikuyu at Dagoreti. But his
work was interrupted by the arrival of orders to
proceed in hot haste to Uganda, as Stokes " was con-
veying very large consignments of arms and powder"
to that country, and it was necessary to put a stop
to this illegal and iniquitous trade.

Wilson was left at Dagoreti ; but the Kikuyu were
troublesome, and his supplies of ammunition were
kept back from him by an officer nearer the coast.
Wilson had to abandon the station, which was at once
looted and burnt by the natives ; he cut his way back
to Machakos, where he obtained supplies of ammu-
nition, returned to Dagoreti, and rebuilt the station.

Meanwhile, Lugard was hastening by forced marches
to Uganda. As the country was now part of the
British Protectorate, he maintained his right to enter
without permission. So he marched straight to the
capital without waiting for the king's gracious leave.

N

178 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

He reached Mengo on December i8th, 1890, and found
to his great relief that he had won the race with
Stokes. Lugard's instructions from Sir Francis de
Winton, who was the Administrator of British East
Africa, warned him that " Mwanga's hope is Stokes,
who has promised to bring him large quantities of
ammunition, powder, and breech-loading cartridges.
With these Mwanga, it is believed, is going to arm
the Roman Catholics, and drive the Protestants out."
But Stokes had not yet arrived, and the king's position
was still somewhat insecure, as he was dependent on
his Christian supporters ; hence Lugard was in a
position to make the king agree to a formal treaty,
which was signed on December 26th.

Lugard, however, soon found that he had entered
a hornets' nest, owing to the hostility of the four
factions — Mohammedan, Protestant, Catholic, and
Pagan. The Catholics, having aided Mwanga's rest-
oration, were naturally in favour at Court, and re-
gretted Lugard's arrival.

The Protestants welcomed him, as they expected
him to throw in his lot with them against the Catholics.
Lugard, however, had no intention of taking sides
with one religious party against the rest. As the
representative of the British East Africa Company, he
considered himself responsible for the administration
of the whole country, and felt it was his duty to see
that all parties had fair play. His predecessor, Gedge,

HOW LUGARD SAVED UGANDA 179

who had been left behind by Jackson, had tried the
same poHcy, and secured the ill will of both parties
of European missionaries. Lugard was soon to suffer
the same fate. His arrival threatened the Catholic
supremacy, and if he could establish the British East
Africa Company in Uganda the French Fathers' plan
of an International Free State would be shattered.
The Protestant missionaries, on the other hand, were
disappointed that Lugard did not at once take their
view of the position.

The tension was eased for a while by the arrival of
* Bishop Tucker, who reached Uganda at the end of
December with some new recruits. He had left the
coast with seven missionaries, but the treacherous
East African climate had killed three of them, had
completely shattered the health of a fourth, and re-
duced the remaining three to so weak a state that on
entering Uganda they were unable to walk from the
. lake shore to the mission station. The Bishop, with
his usual fairness and common sense, at once entered
into an agreement with Lugard as to the policy of
the Church Mission. But the Bishop's stay was short ;
he could only remain for a month, and so soon as he
had left the country his subordinates repudiated the
agreement.

At the end of January the British East Africa Com-
pany's forces in Uganda were strengthened by the
arrival of Captain Williams with seventy-five Soudanese,

i8o BRITISH EAST AFRICA

lOO Zanzibar!, and a Maxim gun. Stokes arrived a
week later. Lugard immediately protested that Stokes'
powder trade was illegal and immoral, and insisted
that it must cease. Stokes replied by explaining that
he made a profit of ;^250 on every load (60 lb.) of
arms and ammunition that he sold. Lugard did not
take the hint, and Stokes, finding that he had mis-
taken his man, promised to place all his powder in
Lugard's keeping ; but this promise he forgot to fulfil
and soon got the ammunition safely out of Lugard's
reach.

Lugard's next care was to reconcile the two Christian
factions. The hostility between them was bitter, but
it was kept in control by fear of a common enemy,
for the Mohammedans and Pagans were still powerful,
and might at any time renew the war against the
Christians, and perhaps overthrow the king and his
allies.

As a first step in the policy of uniting the Christian
j parties, Lugard persuaded them both to join in an
expedition against the Mohammedan faction in Uganda.
The alliance was not harmonious, and the preparations
for the campaign were marred by continual quarrels.
It had been agreed between the two parties that the
commander of the Uganda army should be alternately
Protestant and Catholic. The Protestants claimed
that it was their turn for the command. But the king
denied that what the Protestants put in as the previous

HOW LUGARD SAVED UGANDA i8i

war with a Catholic in command was a war at all ; so
he decided that it was the Catholics' turn to nominate
the commander-in-chief. These little matters having
been arranged, on April 8th the combined forces
marched against the Mohammedans. Lugard crossed
the Kanyongoro River by a clever stratagem. He
pretended to camp, but crossed the river at night and
attacked and routed the Mohammedans at dawn on
May 7th. He was anxious to follow up the victory
by a pursuit of the fugitives and an advance on the
capital of Kaberega, the king of Unyoro. The
Waganda, however, had had enough of the war, and
would not join in the pursuit, so that the fruits of
the victory were lost.

The two Christian parties, being thus relieved
of the common enemy, quarrelled with greater fury
than before. Many of the disputes were over triviali-
ties. The main quarrel, however, was respecting the
right of the native chiefs to change their religion.
That any pagan or Mohammedan could become a
Christian was admitted ; but the question at issue was
whether any Protestant chief could turn Catholic, or
vice versd. With the characteristic irony of Uganda
politics, the Catholics were for "complete religious
liberty," and the Protestants were against it, as they
said {vide, e.g., p. 190) the people did not understand
it, and that it was useless to give it to them. Lugard
reported that " the Catholics behaved very well ; they

i82 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

said they were in favour of complete freedom of
creed." The Protestants, on the other hand, said
that the question was really political and not re-
ligious ; that the chiefs wanted to change simply
because Catholicism was in fashion at court ; and, as
there had been a division of the chieftainships between
the two sects, if men were allowed to change it would
upset the recent agreement and balance of power.

On the view, to use Sir Gerald Portal's phrase,
that the race for converts in Uganda was synonymous
with a race for political power, there is no doubt
much to be said for the Protestant position. But to
those who look upon missionaries as spiritual teachers
the Protestant contention is revolting. That mission-
aries, sent to preach the gospel that "the truth shall
make you free," should, at the end of the nineteenth
century, demand that a man should forfeit his position
and estates, because he had changed the sect of
Christianity to which he belonged, appears simply in-
credible. It is therefore advisable to state the Protest-
ant position in the words of one of the most respected
and most tolerant members of the Church Missionary
Society in Uganda. The Rev. R. H. Walker, in a
letter dated 14th July, 1891, to the Church Missionary
Intelligencer, explains the Protestant case as follows : —

" Now many want to leave the Protestant party,
and to join that of the king, because they get more
honour by doing so. The Protestants agree to their

HOW LUGARD SAVED UGANDA 183

leaving and becoming Catholics, but say, of course,
they leave their offices or territories behind them
when they change parties. Some consider it unfair
to make a man give up his position in the country
because he changes his religion. The Catholics fall
in with this, as it will increase the power of their
party in the land."

In this controversy Lugard sided with the Pro-
testants on the ground that the whole struggle be-
tween the two parties was political and not religious.
He declined to speak of them as Catholic and
Protestant, but as French and English, although the
" French " Bishop was a German, and one of the
" French " priests (Pere Gaudibert) was an English-
man.

Lugard's decision for a while led to a decrease in
avowed defections to the Catholic cause. But he saw
quite clearly that the Catholics, or, as he called them,
the Wa-Fransi {i.e., the French), were rapidly gaining
overwhelming strength. The refusal of Jackson and
the English missionaries to help Mwanga during his
war of restoration had thrown him into the hands
of the Cathdlics, and the Protestants were steadily
losing in numbers and power.

Lugard foresaw that, as soon as the Catholics were
sufficiently sure of their position, they would endeavour
to expel the Protestants. Even if the Company could
afford to send further reinforcements from the coast

i84 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

they could not arrive in time ; and, to hold Uganda
against the Catholics, Lugard knew to be impossible
with the forces at his disposal.

While Lugard was puzzling over the best course
to adopt, it occurred to him that somewhere to the
west of Uganda there was a body of Emin Pasha's
old Egyptian troops, who might be called to the rescue.
They were part of the force which had held the Equa-
torial Soudan against the Mahdists, and had been left
behind, when Emin and Stanley withdrew from the
Soudan.

It is true that Selim Bey, Emin's most trustworthy
officer, had been sent to bring these people to
Kavalli's, and Stanley had waited for them as long as
he had felt justified. He allowed Selim what he
thought ample time, and it might have been ample for
Stanley, But Selim Bey was not a Stanley, and he
did not keep his appointment. Stanley accused him of
intentional delay ; and, as some of the other Soudanese
officers had been guilty of treachery to Emin, Lugard
hesitated about bringing Selim and his men into
Uganda. But Shukri, the head of the Soudanese
with Lugard, was positive that Selim had done his
best, and that the garrisons around Wadelai had been
so scattered that it was impossible to collect them in
the time allowed. Shukri Aga insisted most strongly
that Selim Bey was, and always had been, loyal ;

HOW LUGARD SAVED UGANDA 185

that he had been most eager to accompany the " relief
expedition " to the coast, but would not desert his
men. He had appealed for a little longer time, but
before he reached Kavalli's the " Emin Expedition "
had left for the coast and Selim and his people
were left stranded on the shores of the Albert Nyanza.
Lugard was at length convinced that Selim could be
trusted. He knew his own position in Uganda was
untenable with the forces at his command, and that it
was hopeless to ask for assistance from the coast, so he
resolved to visit Selim Bey and invite his help.

At the end of the Mohammedan war Lugard there-
fore left Captain Williams in charge of Uganda and
marched westward to the Albert Nyanza. He went
first to Toru, a district at the eastern foot of Ruwenzori,
that had once been an independent Wahuma kingdom.
It had been recently conquered by its northern neigh-
bours, the Wanyoro, who continually raided the
country to pillage and enslave. Kasagama, the son
of the last king of Toru, was a fugitive in Uganda,
so Lugard took him back and replaced him on his
father's throne.

Kasagama was warmly welcomed by his people ;
Lieutenant de Winton was left to build a series of
forts and to protect the country from the Wanyoro,
and Lugard continued westward on his errand to
Selim.

He found the Soudanese settlement, and he explained

i86 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

to Selim the difficulties in Uganda and begged him
to prevent the expulsion of the British.

Selim told Lugard the story of his adventures since
he had been sent to Wadelai to collect the last of
the Soudanese garrisons. He explained that he had
been unable to rejoin Stanley in the ten weeks
allotted him, because one of the garrisons he had
to bring back was a month's march from Wadelai.
After many difficulties he reached Kavalli's a few days
after Stanley had left. Fadl Maula, the Soudanese
officer who had organized the mutiny against Emin,
then sent a force to attack Kavalli's. The rebel
Soudanese took Selim prisoner, looted the station,
and returned north to Wadelai. Selim was released
and left with 90 men and 300 women and children
in a state of utter destitution. He settled at Kavalli's,
where he was attacked by the natives, and in the
fight lost half his men. But the chief Kavalli inter-
fered and saved his force from annihilation.

Meanwhile Fadl Maula, who was now in command
of almost the whole of the Soudanese, played false
to his own men. He entered into an intrigue to
compel his force to submit to the Mahdists. His men
discovered the plot, repelled a Mahdist attack, and
then marched south to join Selim. They left Wadelai
in March, 1891, and reached Kavalli's forty days
later.

By this reinforcement Selim had under his com-

HOW LUGARD SAVED UGANDA 187

mand a force of 600 Soudanese troops, the survivors
of over 3,000, and was now safe from attack by the
natives. He planted cotton seeds, made rough hand-
looms, wove cloth for uniforms, and tried to re-establish
among his men the discipline and organization of
civilized troops.

In July, 1 89 1, he was visited by Emin Pasha, who,
now in the service of the German Government, came
to Kavalli's, hoping to persuade Selim and the Souda-
nese to enlist under the German flag. A few consented,
but, owing to Selim's influence, the Soudanese, as a
body, remained faithful to their Egyptian allegiance
and refused to enter the German service. Emin went
away disappointed, and his few Soudanese recruits
deserted at the first opportunity.

Lugard's proposals, however, Selim regarded with
favour. He had been one of Gordon's officers, and
expressed himself devoted to the British. He asked
for time to think over the invitation, and terms were
discussed. Lugard suggested that some other Sou-
danese should take part in the conference, but Selim
replied " that he alone would decide for his people,
and what he resolved on they would do." " And so,"
adds Lugard, " it eventually turned out."

Selim's main hesitation was that he was an Egyp-
tian soldier, and that he did not like to enlist in a
foreign service without authorization. He declared that
" he had grown grey in the service of the Khedive,

i88 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

and that nothing should induce him to swerve in his
allegiance to the flag for which he had a hundred times
risked his life."

To wait for permission from Egypt would have
rendered Selim's assistance useless. So the enlistment
took place on the understanding that the Khedive's
consent was to be obtained at the earliest possible
opportunity, and that, if the Khedive withheld it, Selim
and his men should be immediately released from their
engagement. Further, it was decided that, until the
Khedive's reply came, the Soudanese should not be
sent to the southern Soudan, or beyond the northern
and north-western frontiers of Unyoro. Lugard also
agreed that all orders to the Soudanese should be
given through Selim Bey.

The alliance was popular with the Soudanese, who
were delighted at the prospect of return to active ser-
vice. A review was held, and the troops marched in
column before Lugard, carrying their old Egyptian flags.

" It was impossible," says Lugard, " not to feel a
thrill of admiration for these deserted soldiers, as they
carried past flag after flag, torn and riddled in many
fierce engagements with the Mahdists."

The terms of enlistment having been settled, Lugard
returned to Rubaga, the capital of Uganda, with a
Soudanese force sufficient to quell any rebellion that
might arise. The British position in Uganda seemed
at lencrth secure.

HOW LUGARD SAVED UGANDA 189

However, on Christmas Day, 1891, a mail came in
from the coast with orders that Uganda was to be
evacuated, and the Company's forces were to return
at once to the coast. "This is a thunderbolt," said
Lugard. The order came to him as a crushing sur-
prise. Since his departure he had had but few chances
of communication with the coast, and he was not aware
that the British East Africa Company had reached a
financial crisis. It found itself unable to maintain the
expense of holding Uganda ; and it had no option but
to withdraw. Lugard was in a painful dilemma. Both
he and Williams had given their personal assurance to
their Waganda allies that England would not abandon
them, and they felt that obedience to the Company's
order would be an act of personal treachery. On the
other hand, to retain the Zanzibari when the Company
could not pay their wages would be equally bad faith
with them. Lugard was relieved by a noble offer from
Captain Williams, who generously undertook to pay
personally the expenses of the retention of Uganda,
until an appeal could be sent to the coast.

A fortnight later (7th January, 1892) came the news
that Sir William Mackinnon and some of the friends of
the Church Missionary Society had subscribed sufficient
funds to pay for a year's administration of Uganda, in
the hope that by that time the Company would be able
to pay its way, and permanently retain the country.

But the news that the Company was in sore straits,

190 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

and that Lugard had been actually ordered to return,
was known to the Catholics, and added greatly to
Lugard 's difficulties. It destroyed the Company's
prestige, and shook the confidence of its allies.

During Lugard's absence, moreover, the bitterness
between the two Christian parties had been intensified.
Williams, unaware of Lugard's decision, refused to en-
force the confiscation of the property of those Protes-
tants who had turned Catholic. Captain Williams was
a straightforward, outspoken soldier, with a typical
Englishman's distrust of plausible excuses for deviation
from what appears the honest policy. He flatly re-
fused to confiscate any man's property as a punishment
for change of creed. For this he was bitterly attacked
by the Protestants, who threatened a war in conse-
quence. One of the Church missionaries (the late Rev.
G. L. Pilkington) declared that war was almost inevit-
able, and threw the blame on Williams. " The prob-
ability of war," he wrote, " was caused by a proposal
from Captain Williams to abolish the agreement made
between the two parties, and to permit chiefs — all of
whom now hold office qua Protestant or Roman
Catholic, appointed by one or other party — who
change their religion to retain their chieftainships.
We should, of course, be delighted to see full re-
ligious liberty, but the people do not understand it,
and the Protestant party were very resolute against
accepting the proposal."

HOW LUGARD SAVED UGANDA 191

The English missionaries sent Williams a strongly-
worded protest, and wrote to England complaining
that he was ruling " Uganda through the priests."
They said that he had shown gross partiality to the
Catholics, and had purposely weakened the Protestants
in order to favour the Catholics. The best answer to
this charge is the fact that the Catholics were equally
wrathful with Williams for favouring the Protestants.
The French bishop protested, in a letter written on
23rd January, that during Williams' administration
the Catholics could " no longer obtain any justice, and
the thing has come to such a pass that they do not
even think of going any more to the fort at Kampala
with their grievances."

Thus, while the Catholics declared they were staying
away from the fort owing to Williams' gross partiality
to the Protestants, one, at least, of the English mis-
sionaries would not enter the fort owing to Williams'
gross partiality to the Catholics.

Lugard therefore returned to Uganda to find religious
bitterness worse than when he had left for the Albert
Nyanza. Feelings on both sides were so excited that
it was evident that the slightest untoward accident would
precipitate a civil war. Lugard did his best to prevent
an outbreak, as is admitted by one of his severest critics.
" It is impossible," says Ashe, " to speak too highly of
Lugard's earnest desire for peace, or of his patience

192 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

and forbearance under the most trying circumstances ;
and I feel sure that, had peace been possible, no man
that has ever entered Uganda was more fitted to secure
it."

But all efforts for peace were in vain. Both sides
were arming, and Protestant and Catholic natives
began gun-stealing from each other in their feverish
preparations. A Catholic, whose gun had been stolen
by a Protestant, appealed for its return from the
chief whose follower had stolen it. He could get
no redress, and resolved to take compensation by
stealing a gun from the other side. He entered into
a long palaver with a Protestant about the sale of
some beer, and while the bargaining was going on,
an accomplice snatched the Protestant's gun and fled
with it into the adjacent compound of a Catholic
named Mugoloba. The Protestant gave chase, and
tried to force his way into the enclosure, whereupon
he was shot dead by the owner.

The different accounts vary in details, but they
agree in the essential facts. The Protestants demanded
vengeance on Mugoloba ; but the king ruled that,
according to Uganda law, a man was justified in
shooting any one who was trying forcibly to enter
his enclosure.

The law on the subject is, perhaps, doubtful. Had
the Protestant entered the enclosure at night, Mugo-
loba would have been unquestionably within his rights

HOW LUGARD SAVED UGANDA J 93

in shooting the trespasser. As the incident occurred
during dayh'ght, the Protestant party declared their
man had a perfect right to force his way after the
thief The Church Missionary Society's report de-
scribes the affair as "the cold-blooded murder of a
Protestant chief." There was not much cold blood
circulating in the veins of the Waganda at this time.

Lugard, however, thought the king's decision unfair,
and protested against it. His protest was ignored,
and he was himself treated with insult and ridicule
by the Catholic chiefs present during his interview
with the king.

Lugard saw that war was imminent. He appealed
to the Catholic bishop for help in averting it ; but the
reply showed Lugard that the Catholics would do
nothing to prevent an outbreak of hostilities. They
knew their party was strongest amongst the natives,
and probably thought they had everything to gain by
a fight. To be ready for emergencies, Lugard at once
served out to the Protestants forty guns and some
powder. Next day the war drums were beaten, and
both sides were drawn up in line of battle, waving
flags of defiance.

The capital of Uganda is built upon four hills. The
southern hill is known as Mengo, the seat of the
king's palace, and the ancient capital of Uganda. A
little to the north-west of Mengo is the hill of Rubaga,
which is the headquarters of the Catholic Mission.

O

194 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

The Protestant Mission has its station on the hill of
Namirembe, which is due north of Mengo. The
eastern hill, Kampala, is crowned by the British fort,
and was the headquarters of the Company.

The Catholics had concentrated on Mengo, in front
of the king's palace, while the Protestant forces were
mainly collected on the hill around the English Mis-
sion buildings of Namirembe, and opposite the French
Mission station at Rubaga. The fighting is said by
Lugard to have begun by the Catholics suddenly
opening fire. The Protestants at once attacked Ru-
baga, where there was only the weak left wing of
the Catholic army to oppose them. The Protestants
easily captured the hill, and set fire to the Catholic
church and station. The Catholics, in turn, advanced
north from Mengo towards Kampala. Lugard con-
cluded that they were going to attack the fort, and
accordingly opened fire with the Maxim at a distance
of 1,400 yards. The fire was effective. The Catholics
fled, after about a dozen had been wounded and half
a dozen killed.

After a little more fighting, Williams charged with
the Soudanese, and the Catholic army was driven from
the field. The Protestants commenced to loot and burn,
in spite of the strenuous efforts of the English officers.

The king fled to Bulingugwe, a small island seven
miles from the capital. Lugard was anxious to get
him back to Mengo, where he could be kept under con-

HOW LUGARD SAVED UGANDA 195

trol and out of mischief. He asked Mwanga to return,
and allowed the Catholic bishop to go to Bulingugwe
on the promise that he would do his best to bring the
king back. But the bishop's promise, according to
Ashe, was " a diplomatic ruse to obtain his own
liberty"; for, as soon as the bishop reached the king,
he urged him not to return to Mengo. Lugard then
sent Stokes' headman, Mafitaa, on the same errand.
He reported that the king was anxious to get home
again, but was kept a prisoner by the Catholics.
Accordingly, on the 28th January, Lugard sent an
ultimatum demanding Mwanga's return. He could not
allow so large a force to remain in his rear, while he
might at any time be attacked by the Mohammedan
party from the north.

On the very next day (January 29th) some of the
king's party attacked some Protestant canoes, which
were taking food from the island of Komi to the main-
land. This renewed act of war, combined with an
insulting message from the king, showed Lugard that
strong steps must be taken. On the following day he
sent Williams with a Maxim gun and a hundred
Soudanese, under Dualla, to attack Bulingugwe. The
island was less than a quarter of a mile from the main-
land, so that it was within range of the Maxim. At
two in the afternoon Dualla, with fifteen canoes, crossed
the strait under shelter of the Maxim fire. The
Catholics were panic-stricken. The king and the

iq6 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

bishop escaped in a canoe, and the people tried to
follow them. The canoes were overcrowded, many of
them sank, and in the flight some hundreds of the
natives were drowned.

Mwanga and the Catholic bishop, who, it may be
remembered, was a German, fled across the lake to
German territory. The king took up his residence at
the Catholic station of Bukumbi, where, according to
Ashe, he was " watched, as a mouse is watched by a cat,
by his Roman Catholic subjects, who were now really
his gaolers." Mwanga soon tired of Catholicism when
it meant exile, and on March 30th he escaped from the
station and returned to Mengo, where he was respect-
fully welcomed by Lugard and reinstated as king.
But he now fully realized that his absolute power was
at an end, and that in future he must reign as a vassal
of the British East Africa Company. He accepted a
treaty with Lugard, which made this position perfectly
clear. In this treaty Lugard stipulated that the
missionaries should confine themselves to missionary
work, and one clause defined their proper sphere of
work as " preaching the Gospel, and teaching the arts
and industries of civilization." But this ruling was not
in accordance with the views of the missionaries, al-
though non-interference in politics is one of the accepted
rules of the Church Missionary Society. The President
of the Protestant Mission at once repudiated the idea
that he should not interfere in politics ; he maintained

HOW LUGARD SAVED UGANDA 197

"that the Protestant chiefs were now the rulers of
Uganda, and that Lugard's treaty only enabled him to
rule through the king and chiefs."

The Catholics were almost as hostile as their rivals,
for they were angry at their complete overthrow. And
while Ashe accused Lugard of being " entirely under
the influence of the fascinating fathers," he was equally
accused by them of gross injustice. Indeed, both
missionary parties for a while lost their own jealousies
in hatred of Lugard, whom they denounced as a
murderer and a liar.

" Penal servitude, free from missionaries, were a state
of comparative bliss," exclaimed Lugard in despair.

This feud at the capital between the Company and
the missionaries inspired the Mohammedans with the
hope that they might recover their supremacy, and
they prepared to attack Mengo.

Lugard resolved to try diplomacy, and sent Selim
Bey to treat with Mbogo, the Mohammedan Sultan.
Selim did his work so well that Mbogo was persuaded
to give up his claims to the Uganda throne, and to
meet Lugard at a conference. Mbogo was at first
afraid to enter Uganda, as he suspected treachery ; but
Selim swore on the Koran that he would be responsible
for his safety. Mbogo met Lugard at a conference, and
was induced to settle at Kampala. A treaty was ar-
ranged, which assigned to the Mohammedans the three
provinces — Kitunzi, Katambala, and Kasuju.

198 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Meanwhile the Christians, annoyed at this peaceful
settlement with the Mohammedans, were again medi-
tating mischief; for the Protestants projected an alliance
with the Catholics for a treacherous attack on the
Company's forces. But the Soudanese garrison rendered
Lugard's position impregnable, and the last scheme for
Lugard's overthrow came to nought.

Lugard had now firmly established the Company's
position in Uganda. He had routed the Catholics,
made peace with the Mohammedans, and enlisted a
garrison of Soudanese, who rendered him independent
of the Protestants. He had demonstrated that Uganda
could be held, and had maintained British supremacy
throughout a greater crisis than was likely to recur.
The future of Uganda was now financial, and the
question of its retention must be fought out in England.
So in June, 1892, Lugard started for the coast, leaving
Williams in charge of Uganda.

In Captain Williams' hands the British supremacy
was absolutely secure. His relations to the Protestant
missionaries were, however, even more bitter than had
been those of Lugard. Though politically opposed to
the Catholics, his personal relations with them were
more cordial. In February, 1893, he attacked the
Wavuma islanders to punish some acts of piracy.
Otherwise his administration was peaceful, and he
kept the country in order till the end of the period
for which the British East Africa Company had agreed
to continue the occupation of Uganda.

Chapter XII
UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE

" Fate had set me down in the very furthest point from ali
civiHzation, as a captain of Bashi-bazouks, a raider and an ivory
thief."

— The Commandant of Unyoro, 1895.

THE establishment of the direct Foreign Office
control over Uganda, which was informally
effected by Sir Gerald Portal on ist April, I
1893, was the result of a vigorous agitation in England '
during the autumn and early winter of 1892. The
movement for the Imperial occupation of Uganda was
begun by the English missionary party, and by the
friends of the East Africa Company. They received
the powerful support of Sir H. M. Stanley. But the
success of the movement was in the main due to the
powerful appeals of Captain Lugard. He left Uganda
in June, 1892, and landed in England in October. He
opened the campaign by a paper to the Geographical
Society, and followed this pronouncement by an ener-
getic agitation on the platform and in the press. He
urged the commercial value of Uganda, the command-

200 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

ing strategic position of the country, and the damage
that would be done to British prestige if we abandoned
our alh'es and converts to the persecutions of their foes.
The advocates for the retention of Uganda no doubt
had the sympathy of the permanent officials of the
Foreign Office, and the support of the Foreign Secre-
tary, Lord Rosebery. But the policy was strongly
opposed by those who considered British East Africa
economically worthless, and that entanglement in ad-
ventures there would tie our hands in the struggle for
more profitable fields. This party was weak numerically,
but it was strong in political influence ; for it was main-
taining the traditional Liberal principles which were
still held by some of the strongest members of the
existing Government, including Sir William Harcourt,
then the Leader of the House of Commons.

As the popular agitation for the retention of Uganda
increased in strength, the section of the ministry in
favour of this policy became more resolute. Neither
side would give way, and it was evident that some-
thing must be done to prevent a split in the Cabinet.
So to postpone discussion of the question until after
the end of the parliamentary session of 1893, it was
resolved to send Sir Gerald Portal, the British Consul-
General at Zanzibar, to Uganda — to write a report.

The decision was formed in December, 1892. It
was a ten weeks' march to Uganda ; for the sake of
appearances, the commissioner ought to devote at least

3 ^

8

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 201

two months to his investigations in the country ; ten
weeks would be occupied in the return journey to
Zanzibar, and another three on the journey home.
Hence, by this simple appointment of a commissioner,
whose report could not be received in England until
the end of August, the Government removed Uganda
from the field of parliamentary discussion in the session
of 1893.

Sir Gerald Portal thoroughly understood what was
expected of him. He remarked before he started that
he could as well write his report at once in Zanzibar
as he could in Uganda, for the essential facts were
all known. But an immediate report was precisely
what was not wanted. So on the 3rd January, 1893,
he and his staff left Mombasa, and began the weary
march on the long Uganda Road. The monotony of
the journey, however, was varied by shooting some
rhinoceros and some Kikuyu.

The instructions sent to Portal by Lord Rosebery
were extremely vague. Portal was " to frame a report
as expeditiously as may be, on the best means of deal-
ing with the country, whether through Zanzibar or
otherwise." Portal clearly shows that he understood
that his nominal duty was to report regarding "the
retention or evacuation of Uganda."

He entered Kampala on 17th March, and immedi-
ately opened negotiations with both the missionary
parties and the king.

202 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Sir Gerald Portal found the two mission parties still
bitterly opposed. He reported (8th April) though
there had been no further outbreak of hostilities since
the previous spring, " nevertheless that peace could
not yet be looked upon as being permanent or as-
sured. The Catholics were arming rapidly, and sparing
no sacrifice in their effort to obtain a supply of arms
and ammunition, and that they were in a dangerous
state of discontent."

Portal's report to the Government threw the blame
for the Uganda disasters on the unfortunate mixture
of religious and political parties. " The miserable history
of Uganda for the last two years is sufficient to show
how inextricably religion and politics are interwoven
in this country, and I fear that the narrow, fanatical
nature of the people forbids us to hope for any
great improvement in this respect for several years to
come."

He found Uganda divided into three factions, nomi-
nally religious, but in reality political — the Mohamme-
dan, under Mbogo, and the two Christian parties, of
which the real leaders were the European missionaries.
" That the missionaries, on both sides, are the veritable
political leaders of their respective factions, there can
be no doubt whatever." Portal considered this fact as
deplorable as it was indisputable. He admitted that
it would have been difficult for the missionaries to have
avoided acquiring the political leadership. But neither

I

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 203

party wanted to avoid acquiring political power, so it
was not to be expected that they should have exercised
" the very great tact and judgment " by which, accord-
ing to Portal, they could have kept aloof from political
strife. Portal bluntly reported " that the race for
converts now being carried on by the Catholic and
Protestant missions in Uganda is synonymous with a
race for political power." He asserted that it was only
the presence of the English officers and the Soudanese
troops at the fort that kept peace between the two
Christian factions ; and he predicted that, if the British
administration were withdrawn, "the war of extermin-
ation will be at once renewed." He deplored that
"no doctrine of toleration, if it has been taught on
either side, appears to have been received by the native
Christians." And this religious intolerance, according
to Portal, has, " since the introduction of the two forms
of Christianity into Uganda, cost many hundreds of
lives, and has thrown the country fifty years back in
its advance towards prosperity. It is deeply to be
regretted that the avowedly great influence of mission-
aries in Uganda is not used to introduce a spirit of
tolerance and peace, even at the risk of loss to the
party of some political power, or a few wealthy
chieftainships."
I Portal accordingly concluded that British occupation
was necessary to prevent the outbreak of a civil war
of extermination, and that it was the main duty of the

204 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

British administrator to reconcile the two parties, or at
least keep the peace between them, by holding the
balance of power. With difficulty he persuaded the
two bishops to agree to a division of Uganda into
Protestant and Catholic provinces ; this arrangement
was only rendered possible by the courageous con-
cessions and moderation of Bishop Tucker. By the
treaty the Catholics were restored to several important
political appointments, and were given the province of
Kamia, the Island of Sesse, the district of Luwekula,
and the plantations of Mwanika through Majama to
the capital, in addition to the province of Budu, which
had belonged to them in accordance with Lugard's
treaty.

To strengthen the administration. Portal enlisted 450
Soudanese, and established them at Ntebbi, a station on
the shore of the Nyanza a few miles from the capital.

Portal's third measure was to reverse Lugard's western
policy by abandoning the chain of forts built to protect
Toru from the raids of the Wanyoro. The withdrawal
of these garrisons was an unfortunate mistake ; and
though this step was promptly reversed after Portal's
departure, it was attended with disastrous consequences.

Portal stayed for two months in Uganda, and when
he left for home the outlook was more peaceful than it
had been for some time before. The two Christian
parties were cowed into submission ; the Mohammedan

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 205

question appeared to have been completely settled by
Lugard's arrangement; the capital of Uganda was
garrisoned by a Soudanese force under an officer with
a long record of faithful service. Yet in less than
three weeks from Portal's departure, on the 30th May,
Uganda was again enjoying a political crisis, and the
whole of the Soudanese garrison was being disarmed
on a charge of mutiny.

When Portal started on his return journey, he left
Captain (now Colonel Sir) J. R, L. Macdonald tem-
porarily in charge. Macdonald was an Indian railway
officer, who had been sent to East Africa in 1892 to
survey the projected railway from Mombasa to the
Victoria Nyanza. He was returning from this v/ork,
when he was ordered back to Uganda to report on
the charges made by the French missionaries against
Lugard's administration. His report has never been
published, but it is believed to have been hostile to
Lugard, as the English Government agreed to pay
the exorbitant demands of the Catholics for their
losses in the war. As Macdonald was the senior officer
in Uganda on Portal's departure, he was left as acting
commissioner, with instructions to interfere as little as
possible in internal politics.

Portal's readjustment of the provinces of the Catholics
and Protestants had rendered the Mohammedans dis-
contented with their share. They sent in a claim for
more lands, which was received in Kampala after

206 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Portal's departure. The Mohammedans threatened to
refuse to pay their taxes, until their asserted wrongs
were righted. Their demands were refused, and trouble
looked inevitable. On i6th June Selim Bey sent a
message to the administrator, intended to prevent an
outbreak of hostilities. The message was verbal, and
there are grave doubts as to the accuracy of its trans-
lation. Macdonald's own version is as follows : " The
message was to the effect that he [Selim] heard that
there was a probability of a fight between the king
Mwanga and the Uganda Mohammedans ; that he
had told Mbogo [the Mohammedan chief] not to fight,
but warned me that if I allowed the king Mwanga
to fight the Mohammedans, that he, Selim Bey, as he
and Captain Lugard had brought the Waganda Mo-
hammedans into the country, would consider hostile
action on the part of Mwanga against the Waganda
Mohammedans as hostile action against himself."

For a native officer to tell his political superior that
he would treat any act as hostile was of course an
irregular proceeding. But we must remember that
the Mohammedans had strongly objected to re-enter-
^^S Uganda, and that they had only consented to
return after Selim Bey had sworn on the Koran that
no harm should happen to them. He had pledged his
personal honour to the Mohammedans, and it was not
surprising, therefore, that he should have endeavoured
to secure the peaceable redress of their grievances.

-^

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 207

Selim's message, whether understood correctly or not,
created great excitement in Kampala. Macdonald
interpreted it as a threat of rebellion, and feared that
the Soudanese troops would mutiny. He arrested
Mbogo and other Mohammedan leaders, called as many
as possible of the Europeans into the fort, and disarmed
the Soudanese troops. Selim was then arrested at Port
Alice. There was no trouble over the arrests. Mbogo's
Mohammedan supporters were sent away peacefully by
their leader ; Selim offered no resistance ; and the troops
at Ntebbi laid down their arms, saying, according to
Ashe, " We obey, because Selim, our leader, has asked
us to do so." A slight skirmish between some of the
Waganda Mohammedans and some Protestants was
the only fight in connection with this deplorable
episode.

Selim was placed on his trial for treason and mutinous
conduct. The evidence against him was his message to
Macdonald. It is now generally admitted that the
message was mistranslated, as Mr. Reddie, to whom it
was given, had then a limited knowledge of Suahili.
Selim emphatically repudiated the statements attributed
to him. Nevertheless, though the charge of treason was
abandoned, Selim was convicted of insubordination.
He was degraded, and marched away in irons to the
coast. Selim was slowly dying of dropsy, and this
treatment no doubt hastened his death. He died before
reaching Naivasha, his end embittered by what he

2o8 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

regarded as an ungrateful return for his years of faith-
ful service.

Whether Selim deserved his fate depends on the
question whether he was guilty of mutiny. The state-
ment that there was any mutiny at all is dismissed by
Sir Gerald Portal in his official report on the occurrence,
for he says that " Captain Macdonald appears to have
taken every precaution in anticipation of the complica-
tions which might have ensued in the event of a mutiny of
the Soudanese''

The evidence of the missionaries, who have been uni-
formly hostile to the Soudanese, is less explicit ; but
their chief spokesman, Mr. Ashe, remarks that there was
" nothing secretly treacherous in his [Selim's] action,"
and whether he meant to resort to arms against the
Government " it is a little difficult to decide."

That Selim should have mutinied is in itself highly
improbable. Most of the Europeans who had come in
contact with him describe him as an honest, well-
meaning, but indolent man.

Stanley was certainly not prejudiced in his favour,
for he was irritated with his slowness and what he
called his dense stupidity. Stanley's graphic sketch of
Selim is a tribute to his honesty.

" He is six feet high, large of girth, about fifty years
old, black as coal ; I am rather inclined to like him.
The malignant and deadly conspirator is always lean.
I read in this man's face indolence, a tendency to pet

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 209

his animalism. He is a man to be led, not to conspire.
Feed him with good things to eat and plenty to drink,
Selim Bey would be faithful. Ah, the sleepy eye of
the full-stomached man. This is a man to eat and
sleep and snore and play the sluggard in bed, to
dawdle slip-shod in the bed-chamber, to call for coffee
fifty times a day and native beer by the gallon, to sip
and sip and smile, and then to sleep again, and so and
so to his grave."

Stanley's officer, Jephson, who had even better
opportunities of knowing Selim intimately, tells us
that "he was enormously fat and broad. He was a
great, easy-going fellow, with a good-natured, cherubic
face, and had a little shrew of a wife who kept him
in splendid order."

These descriptions, written years before the trouble
in Uganda, do not represent Selim as the type of man
who would start a mutiny on his death-bed. And the
testimonies to Selim's fidelity of character are equally
strong. Jephson reports that, when the rebellion against
Emin broke out among the Soudanese, Selim did his
best to restrain the soldiers and save Emin, and he
warned the rebel officers to do nothing violent. Selim
was chosen by Emin to act as his intermediary with
the rebels ; he smuggled letters to Emin and Jephson
when they were prisoners, telling them of Stanley's ar-
rival on the Albert Nyanza ; and he finally secured their
release.

P

210 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Selim also held a good record for valiant service in
the field. By his bravery at Dufild he rallied the troops
and broke the Dervish attack, and thus saved Emin,
the last of Gordon's governors, from being carried cap-
tive to Khartoum.

Lugard's testimony to Selim's loyalty in Uganda is
emphatic. Lugard found him absolutely loyal and de-
voted in his allegiance to the Khedive and to the
English. After Lugard got to know him, he trusted
him implicitly, and was rewarded by assistance which
Lugard describes as invaluable. We can therefore
understand Lugard's burning indignation that the man
who did most to hold the Equatorial Provinces against
the Mahdists, and in truth saved the English from
being driven from Uganda — that such a man should
have been done to death in chains and disgrace, for a
share in what Portal apparently regarded as a phantom
mutiny.

" Recent telegrams," says Lugard, " bring the news
that Selim Bey has been convicted by Captain Mac-
donald of treachery, and of an intrigue with the Mo-
hammedan Waganda, having for its object the over-
throw of the British. Judging by the accounts which
have reached England, Selim's open defiance, when he
thought the Mohammedans unjustly treated, can hardly
be called ' treachery.' He was at the time dying of
dropsy, but was ordered to march to the coast, and, of
course, died. The story I have told will show that, at

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 211

the risk of his own life, Selim remained loyal to me ;
that it was mainly owing to him that the settlement
with the Mohammedans was effected — at a time when,
had he desired to act treacherously, the opportunity was
before him. The Soudanese in Toru were close by, and
would have followed him blindly ; the whole Moham-
medan Waganda faction would have eagerly accepted
the chance. He remained absolutely loyal ; and I
knew the man with whom I was dealing well enough to
know that it would be so. There must have been a
strange want of tact to convert a loyalty so sincere into
hostility, when Selim was even then a dying man. , . .
To me it is a sad contemplation that this veteran
selected by Gordon for the command of Mruli, whose
valour saved Dufile, against whom no charge of dis-
loyalty had ever yet been proved amidst all the faith-
lessness of the Soudan troops, and who had proved at
the risk of his life his loyalty to me — that this man
should have been hurried off in a dying state, discredited
and disgraced, to succumb on the march, a prisoner and
an outcast."

The death of Selim Bey is one of the most pathetic
episodes in the history of the Foreign Office rule in
Uganda, and its subsequent effects were deplorable.
The Soudanese, however, remained loyal, and they were
soon re-armed and used in furtherance of the active
policy that was adopted in Uganda.

The principles of the policy on which Sir Gerald

212 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Portal had decided were reserve and experiment. It
was a mark-time policy to discover the minimum cost
at which Uganda could be held. Sufficient Soudanese
were to be enlisted to defend Kampala and enable the
Commissioner to hold the balance of power between
the three Waganda parties. The outlying forts, which
Lugard had built to protect Toru from the Wanyoro,
were abandoned ; the British Acting Commissioner was
ordered not to interfere in the internal administration
of Uganda, except to prevent gross injustice or cruelty
or the renewal of internal war, and he was to under-
take no act of aggression against the neighbouring
states.

But Sir Gerald Portal's system was almost im-
mediately abandoned by his successors. In November,
1893, Macdonald was superseded by the arrival of
Colonel (now General Sir Henry) Colvile. Colvile
found that a campaign had already been prepared
against the people of Unyoro, who had raided into
Toru as soon as Lugard's chain of forts had been
removed by Sir Gerald Portal. The reason for the
recall of the garrison was because they were not under
European supervision, and were ill-treating the popula-
tion they were supposed to protect. That the Soudanese
were not treating their neighbours as they would them-
selves have liked to be treated is most probable. The
only question is which particular section of the native
population was their victim. According to Ashe the

i

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 213

Soudanese were raiding the natives of Southern Unyoro
by order of Kasagama, the king of Toru. If Ashe be
correct, then the king of Unyoro can hardly be blamed
for punishing Kasagama as soon as the Soudanese
garrisons were recalled to Uganda.

The justice of the war against Unyoro is therefore
open to doubt. But Macdonald had decided on the
war and already prepared for it. As Colvile naturally
did not care to upset his predecessor's arrangements the
campaign was begun. A combined Soudanese and
Waganda army marched from Kampala ten days after
Colvile's arrival. The affair, according to Thruston,
was not worthy of being called a war ; he describes it in
a chapter of his book headed " Chasse aux Negres,"
explaining that he accepted the truth of the epigram of
a French traveller, " On ne fait pas la guerre en Afrique ;
ce qui s'y fait, c'est la chasse aux Negres."

The army, which consisted of some 15,000 to 20,000
men, started from Unyoro on 4th December, 1893.
Colvile took Mwanga with him, partly to give him a
pleasant holiday, and partly to keep him out of mischief
while the Commissioner was away. Resistance on the
part of the Wanyoro was useless. Their capital was
taken and burnt, many of the peasantry were shot, but
there was no decisive or exciting engagement. Col-
vile formed a low opinion of the military qualities of his
Waganda allies, though, according to Thruston, their
tactics were extremely skilful whenever they left the

214 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

main expedition and began cattle-lifting on their own
account

After a fruitless chase of the king, the expedition
returned to Uganda in February, 1894, Colvile leaving
Major Thruston, Dr. Moffat and Mr. Forster, with a
garrison of 660 men, to administer Unyoro. The three
men did their work as well as such work could be
done. To raid into a country, to seize all the ivory and
cattle that can be found, and then to retreat with the
loot, is the traditional African system of warfare. Col-
vile's raid on Unyoro therefore appeared to the Wan-
yoro as part of the established order of the universe.
But that a few men should be left to hold the country
permanently was not part of the ordinary game.

The necessity for the occupation of Unyoro was due
to the fact that the only way in which Colvile could
pay his Waganda allies was by giving them some of the
best estates in Unyoro. He accordingly presented a
large tract of country south of Mruli to the Protestants,
and assigned the Catholics a smaller, but still extensive,
district known as Kikakure, west of the province of
Singo.

The Waganda settled in the regions allotted to them ;
they killed the men, and seized all the women they
could find. Those who could escape fled to the Wakedi
country, whence they waged a guerilla warfare against
their Waganda supplanters. The British garrison was
established at the fort of Hoima, which was frequently

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 215

beleaguered by the natives. The monthly caravans from
Uganda had to fight their way through the enemy.
ff- Stray parties of Soudanese and British friendlies were
cut off and slain, and in retaliation the villages and
plantations near the scene of action were destroyed.

When Colvile entered Unyoro it was one of the
richest food countries in Eastern Equatorial Africa, it
had a considerable population, and it was a very impor-
tant trade centre. Colvile himself tells us that " from
the capital to Kibba the country had been one mass of
I banana groves, sweet potato and bean fields." The
\ prolonged guerilla warfare, that began in 1894, devas-
; tated the most fertile districts of Unyoro ; crops were
cut down before the grain had formed, plantations went
out of cultivation, the native trade routes were closed.
Famine was therefore inevitable, and after a spell of
famine pestilence swept through the country. It has
been estimated that in the four years following the
establishment of British rule the population was re-
duced to a fourth.

But all this time, it must be remembered, England
had not annexed Unyoro, so that the military occupa-
tion was somewhat irregular.

Lord Kimberley, as Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
once assured the House of Lords that Unyoro had not
been annexed, and that the natives were not under
British protection. This declaration was read at the
mess table at Hoima, the headquarters in Unyoro, and

2 lb BRITISH EAST AFRICA

called forth the remark that it was not easy to under-
stand the first part of the statement, but that the natives
were not under British protection was quite correct, for
" we shoot them all at sight."

There can be little doubt that the policy being carried
out in Central Africa was not approved by the Home
Government. It wanted the country ruled cheaply, and
these wars were very costly, and the Liberal party had
always been hostile to wars of aggression and unnecessary
extensions of our frontiers. But no efficient check was
possible, owing to the slowness of communications
with Uganda. The Government mildly rebuked Col-
vile's forward policy ; but the message did not
arrive until Colvile had left for England in December
1894.

The new Commissioner in Uganda was Mr. Berkeley,
who arrived in May, 1895. There had been a change of
Government in England, and apparently Mr. Berkeley
was authorised to alter the policy previously recom-
mended from home. Formal protectorates were estab-
lished over Unyoro and Usoga, and then over Nandi
and Kavirondo.

The condition of Unyoro had been steadily getting
worse, and by the end of 1895 Southern Unyoro was
in such a deplorable state that Major (then Captain)
Pulteney was sent there to effect a settlement. Pulteney
was given wide powers, and he used them well. He
made a leading chief, named Rabadongo, chief of

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 217

Southern Unyoro, and appointed as his assistants two
other chiefs, Makenda and Kikakure. By the aid of
these three Wanyoro, Pulteney soon restored order.
The natives, trusting to a guarantee that they should not
be disturbed so long as they kept quiet, began to reculti-
vate their deserted shambas. They also cut roads, and
helped the administration in various ways. The Catholic
Waganda, however, objected very strongly to this rein-
statement of the Wanyoro in the district that Colvile
had given them. They worried Mr. Berkeley until he
decided that Pulteney's statesmanlike settlement must
be rescinded. Pulteney regarded this decision as a
breach of faith with the Wanyoro, and, rather than be
concerned in such an act, resigned his position as Civil
Officer of Southern Unyoro. He was succeeded by
Forster, who was ordered to carry out the new policy,
which he was assured was not intended to inflict the
slightest practical injustice on individuals. The people
were to be persuaded to recognise the supremacy of the
Catholic Waganda, but their property and persons were
to be unmolested so long as they kept quiet. Rabadongo
was removed to Northern Unyoro, and his two assistants
were superseded. The natives, however, trusting to
promises of protection and safety, stayed in their
villages, and the province remained in peace. But then
came another change at Kampala. Mr. Berkeley re-
turned to England, and the new Acting Commissioner
resolved to allow the Catholic Waganda the full rights

2i8 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

they had been granted by Colvile. He gave them the
necessary authorization, and they called on the Resident
in Unyoro to instal them in possession of some of the
land and villages in his district, and compel the native
Wanyoro to remain as labourers. This was in defiance
of the pledges given the Wanyoro by Forster, and he
resigned his post, rather than be the instrument for the
enslavement of the Wanyoro by their hereditary foes.
Forster was transferred to another district, and the
province he had kept in peace broke out into revolt.
The British fort and the French Mission were both
stormed and destroyed, and the Waganda chiefs
promptly chased back to their own country.

Though Unyoro was thus in chaos, in Uganda itself
the officials were satisfied with the general outlook, and
trusted for great progress from the improved methods of
transport to the coast. A bullock road from Mombasa
to the Nyanza had been completed, and a steamer was
to be at once sent up for service on the lake. The
efforts of the Government to place an effective steamer
on the Victoria Nyanza have been singularly unlucky.
In January, 1895, ^ sectional steamer of 62 tons was
purchased and sent inland by caravans, numbering
altogether some 5,000 men. One of the caravans, com-
posed of 1,200 men, was massacred in the Rift Valley by
Masai. Many sections of the steamer were lost or
abandoned on the road, where they were ruined by rust.

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 219

Bishop Tucker met one of the caravans in August, 1895,
and found it so reduced by death and disease that he
sadly confessed " the prospect of the steamer being at
work on the lake within five years is very remote." A
new and slightly larger steamer was bought in 1896, and
Captain Sclater, the builder of the road to Uganda, was
preparing to carry it to the lake in light steel waggons,
made for the purpose at Woolwich Arsenal. But this
promising young officer died at Zanzibar, a victim to the
treacherous East African climate, and the attempts to
carry the steamer to the lake were for a time abandoned.

Mr. Berkeley left Uganda in December, 1896, for a
visit to England, and Captain (now Major) Ternan was
made Acting Commissioner.

At this time Mwanga was feeling especially aggrieved
with the British. Some boys whom he ill-treated had
been taken from him ; he had been recently reminded
that he was now only a vassal, and could be easily re-
placed ; and in November, 1896, he was much annoyed
by being compelled to pay duty on a transaction in
ivory, and at being roughly taken to task for an attempt
to evade payment.

The king was therefore secretly hostile to the British ;
and many of his subjects and subject chiefs had their
own private grievances. The Soudanese were very un-
popular with the people, as foreign mercenaries in a
conquered state generally are. Some of the chiefs had
just cause for complaint at acts of oppression by the

220 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

officers resident in their districts. Thus Kasagama,
whom Lugard had reinstated as King of Toru, was so
ill-treated by the Resident in his state, that he com-
plained to Kampala ; and, as his appeal was supported
by Bishop Tucker, an official inquiry was held, and judg-
ment given for Kasagama. But other chiefs, who had
less influential supporters, had to nurse their grievances
in secret.

The country was, therefore, simmering with discon-
tent, but the leading officials were unconscious of the
unpopularity of British rule. On the Commissioner's
departure he reported that all was well, and one of the
Vice-Consuls wrote that " everything is quiet in Uganda
and Unyoro ; the people are settling down, and there is
not the least likelihood of any trouble with them."
The missionaries, however, who were now engaging with
most encouraging success in their proper religious and
educational work, saw more truly. Archdeacon Walker,
one of the ablest of the British missionaries, wrote in
July " that the number of natives who hate the missions
and all Europeans is very large. They are only
restrained from showing open hostility because the
Government is too strong for them."

The Catholics also saw that trouble was brewing, and
patriotically thrice warned the Government. But the
warnings were despised, and Major Ternan led the
whole of the efficient Soudanese troops on an expedition
against Kamasia, a country some 300 miles east of

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 221

Uganda. The force devastated Kamasia and also the
adjacent country of Nandi. The country of Ketosh was
also to have been invaded, but the tribe M^as saved by
the protests of Mr. Grant, who said that it was in his
district, and that as the people were innocent of offence
they must not be attacked.

The absence of the efficient part of the Soudanese
garrison on this seemingly unnecessary expedition gave
Mwanga his chance. He fled from the capital on 5th
July, 1897, and his departure was the signal for a wide-
spread revolt in Western Uganda. Ternan was recalled,
and returned by forced marches to the capital, and
thence westward to Budu to quell the revolt.

Ternan drove the enemy from the field. Mwanga
escaped, and it looked as if the danger were past.
Ternan returned to Kampala, where he received orders
to send 300 Soudanese to the Rift Valley as escort
of an expedition under Major Macdonald to "the
sources of the Juba river."

A new danger was threatening the Uganda Pro-
tectorate. The French had for some years been
endeavouring to avenge their diplomatic defeats in
Egypt by securing political predominance in Abyssinia,
and the annexation of the Bahr-el-Ghazl to the French
Congo. It is unnecessary to enter into the full de-
tails of the policy, but the main principle may be
briefly stated.

222 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

By various proclamations Egypt, after the fall of
Khartum in 1885, had announced her abandonment
of her Equatorial Provinces. King John of Abyssinia
was persuaded to try to help the escape of the gar-
risons, and the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition was
only the last of a series of efforts made to remove
the surviving Egyptian troops. Egypt therefore had
officially announced her withdrawal from the Soudan.
The British Government had acquiesced in this decision,
not only by official approval in 1885 and 1886, but
by subsequently treating the Soudanese provinces as
derelict, and annexing part of them to the Uganda
Protectorate.

Moreover, by the Lisbon Despatch of August, 1887,
England had laid down the principle that there was
no right of sovereignty in Africa unless supported by
effective occupation.

" It has now," says this despatch, " been admitted
in principle by all the parties to the Act of Berlin
that a claim of sovereignty in Africa can only be
maintained by real occupation of the territory claimed."
England accordingly, in 1887, sent to Portugal "a
formal protest against any claims not founded on oc-
cupation."

The French argument was that as Egypt was not
in occupation, effective or otherwise, of the Bahr-el-
Ghazl, she would have had no rights of ownership
there even had she not expressly renounced them.

il

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 223

Moreover, England had annexed part of the Soudanese
provinces as the hinterland of Uganda, and had
leased another part of them to the Congo Free State
(without any reference in the least to the rights of
the Khedive). Therefore France maintained that she
had the equal right to annex the Bahr-el-Ghazl as the
hinterland of the French Congo if she could establish
that effective occupation which, according to the British
principle, alone gives rights of sovereignty.

Accordingly, M. Liotard, the head of the French
State on the Upper Congo, established stations in
the former Equatorial Provinces of Egypt on the upper
tributaries of the Bahr-el-Ghazl. On this action being
unofficially reported England declared that she would
consider any such action as unfriendly ; but the French
declined to be bluffed by this pronouncement, and
the Chamber of Deputies publicly voted money for
their expeditions in the Bahr-el-Ghazl. The French
advanced slowly and steadily, and a force under Major
Marchand descended the Bahr-el-Ghazl and established
itself at Fashoda on the Nile. It waited there for
the arrival of an Abyssinian army which, under French
officers, was advancing eastward to occupy the country
between Abyssinia and the Nile.

There was no particular secrecy about these ex-
peditions, but the reports as to their progress were
discredited in England. At length it could no longer
be doubted that the French and Abyssinians were

224 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

doing their best to establish a French belt across
Africa, cutting off any connection between British
East Africa and Egypt. Then the Foreign Office
took action.

An expedition was organized to advance from the
Uganda Road into the territory between Abyssinia
and Fashoda, which was admittedly the important
strategic district. The Anglo-Italian frontier, to the
east of Lake Rudolf, in the upper basin of the Juba
River, had not been deliminated ; accordingly, it was
announced that the expedition was to explore " the
sources of the Juba River," a phrase which roused the
ire of Mr. Labouchere. The statement was, however,
technically true. There is a small river known as
the Juba to the north-west of Lake Rudolf, and part
of the work of the new expedition was to explore
the upper part of this less-known Juba.

The official statement was, however, undeniably mis-
leading, as it was naturally thought to refer to the
great Juba River that enters the Indian Ocean at
Kismayu. The real destination was soon divulged
by a political indiscretion. The instructions and de-
spatches regarding the expedition were carefully edited
before publication to prevent the secret being be-
trayed. But a Blue-Book published part of the
despatch which ordered the Acting Commissioner in
Uganda to provide a Soudanese escort for the ex-
pedition. A sentence was unfortunately left in which

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 225

directed that this escort was to contain as many
members as possible of the tribes of the Dinka and
Shilluk, that is of the tribes around Fashoda and
the Lower Sobat.

After that announcement there could be no doubt
that the aim of the " Juba " expedition was to reach
Fashoda and the Nile before the French expeditions
could arrive, under Marchand from the west and Clo-
chette from the east.

The expedition was the most powerful that had
ever been organized in British East Africa. It had
a staff of ten European officers, an escort of fifty
Sikhs and three hundred Soudanese, and it carried
seven Maxims. Its leader was Colonel J. R. L.
Macdonald.

The expedition left the coast in detachments during
the middle of 1897. The caravan was to be organized
and the real start made from a camp to the south
of Lake Baringo. Its escort was ordered to join at
the Eldoma Ravine, where the road from Uganda
descends into the Rift Valley.

The call for a Soudanese escort reached Uganda
at an unlucky time. The three efficient companies of
Soudanese had been overworked by the expeditions
to Kamasia and Budu, and on their return from the
latter they were ordered to start at once on a pro-
longed journey in the country to the north of Uganda.

The three companies selected were taken to the

Q

226 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

ravine station by their commandant, Major Ternan,
who was proceeding to tlie coast on his way home.
They were transferred to Macdonald, who began his
march to the north on 21st September. Two days
later they deserted in a body and returned to the
Eldoma Ravine station to complain to Mr. Jackson,
the Acting Commissioner, of the treatment they had
received from their new commander.

So far the act was a matter of insubordination and
not of mutiny. The Soudanese apparently had no
intentions of mischief, as they allowed the late Captain
Kirkpatrick, one of Macdonald's staff, to ride through
them on his way to warn the late Lieutenant Fielding,
who was in command of the station at the Ravine.

When the first of the Soudanese reached Eldoma
they were ordered to lay down their arms and go
into the fort. They refused to do anything until the
rest of their party had arrived. Captain Kirkpatrick
threatened to fire upon them if they persisted in dis-
obedience. The reply was that he might fire. The
Maxim gun was brought out, against the protests
of Lieutenant Fielding, who, though junior in rank
to Captain Kirkpatrick, was senior in East African
service and in experience of the Soudanese. His pro-
tests were disregarded, and the Maxim was trailed
upon the Soudanese and Kirkpatrick gave the order
to open fire. The gun, according to the official
account, jammed. According to the unofficial ac-

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 227

count it did not fire from a cause which reflects less
discredit on the mechanism of the gun and much
credit on the men behind it.

As Kirkpatrick could not shoot down the Soudanese
with the Maxim, he ordered the garrison to use their
rifles. They could not disobey, but they took care
to fire high, and no blood was shed. But the Sou-
danese were outraged by this reward for their years
of loyal service and fled further from the fort.

Next day they were interviewed by Mr. Jackson.
The tone of his report suggests that he believed the
men's story, and sympathized with their grievances.
He had no option whatever but to order the men to
return to Macdonald, and the men absolutely refused.
After a short delay, the Soudanese marched to a
Government stockade at Nandi, eighty miles to the
west. They were joined by the garrison, arrested
Captain Bagnall, the officer in charge, and looted the
station. Then, releasing Bagnall, they marched west-
ward toward Lubwa's, the station on the eastern bank
of the Nile, at its outlet from the Victoria Nyanza.

The station at Lubwa's had a small Soudanese
garrison, under an officer named Wilson. When the
news of the mutiny reached Uganda, Major Thruston,
the commandant of the Uganda Rifles, chivalrously
started for Lubwa's to secure the loyalty of its garrison,
and persuade the mutineers to return to duty.

He reached Lubwa's on October 4th. The garrison

228 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

swore loyalty to him ; he sent a message to the
Soudanese urging them to return to their allegiance,
and promising that they should not be forced to serve
under Macdonald. But on the night of October the
1 6th the mutineers reached the fort. The garrison were
irritated by the arrest of some of their women in
Uganda, and they admitted the mutineers. Thruston
and Wilson were seized and put in chains. Next day
a third European prisoner was taken, as the Govern-
ment's steam launch ran up to the fort, and its engineer,
Scott, did not know that the mutineers were in posses-
sion.

The same day Macdonald's force arrived in pursuit,
and took up a station on the hill opposite Lubwa's.
Thruston sent Macdonald a characteristically chivalrous
letter, asking him not to fight unless attacked, but not
to let any considerations for his own safety interfere
with the plans for the suppression of the mutiny.

Early next day (October 19th) three hundred of the
mutineers left Lubwa's to have a " shauri " with Mac-
donald. They advanced in irregular order, laughing
and talking until they were fifty yards from the camp.
Macdonald tells us that they then treacherously opened
fire. There is some doubt as to this fact. The method
of the Soudanese advance does not look much like an
intended surprise attack. But a gun went off on one
side or the other. Both sides appear to have suspected
that the other was beginning a treacherous attack, and

II

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 229

the firing became general. After a severe fight, in
which Lieutenant Fielding and Lieutenant Macdonald
were killed, and Mr. Jackson severely wounded, the
mutineers were driven back with heavy loss, including
Mabruk Effendi, one of the two leaders of the mutiny.

In the afternoon two of the Soudanese went as a
deputation to Macdonald to ask for terms. They were
ordered to surrender unconditionally. Though they
had now three European prisoners in their hands, they
were offered the same terms as at the ravine, when the
worst punishment they had to fear was for an act of
petulant insubordination. The Soudanese were in-
furiated at this reply. It may have been that their
officers were anxious to prevent the men from sur-
rendering by inciting them to a step which would cut
off all hopes of mercy. The three Englishmen were
brought from the guard hut, and told that they were to
be shot. Thruston insisted that, if he were to be shot
it must be by the Soudanese commander, Bilal Effendi.
Bilal accordingly raised his rifle. Thruston fearlessly
caught hold of the muzzle and held it against his fore-
head. A moment later he fell, shot through the head.
Wilson and Scott were led away and shot in the back.

This terrible outrage rendered further negotiations
useless, and the siege of Lubwa's was begun by Mac-
donald, aided by a large force of the Waganda. Mean-
while the news of the Soudanese revolt had spread
through Uganda, and the Waganda again rose in

230 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

rebellion. Fortunately, most of the other Soudanese
troops, who had not the same grievances as the three
companies that mutinied, remained loyal ; but, as a
precautionary measure, they were ordered to lay down
their arms, and they promptly obeyed. But without
the services of the Soudanese troops the Waganda
rebels could not be easily kept in check. For some
time the position at Kampala was critical.

Luckily, the Acting Commissioner at this time was
Mr. George Wilson, who had been in British East
Africa ever since 1889. He is a man remarkable for
the keen personal interest he takes in the natives, and
for his infinite patience in dealing with them. He has
a wide command of East African languages, and will
spend hours in conversation with a party of natives,
without betraying boredom or impatience. His know-
ledge of the character of the natives is intimate, and his
power with them is great.

Thanks in the main to the influence of Wilson and
Grant, and to the loyal assistance given by the two
missionary parties, further disasters were averted and
the country held, until the arrival of reinforcements
from the coast.

Meanwhile the mutineers were still besieged at
Lubwa's. An attempt to storm the fort on October
28th was repulsed with severe loss, and the garrison
held its own until the beginning of January, 1897, when
they escaped across the bay, and marched northwards

I

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 231

down the Nile. They occupied a fresh position at
Lake Kioga, where they were attacked and defeated.
The British forces were now reinforced by Indian
troops, and the Soudanese were overwhelmed. They
fought bravely, but after a series of stubborn engage-
ments, fought with varying success, they were finally
crushed and scattered.

The Soudanese mutiny is the saddest of the many
sad stories in the recent history of Uganda. It neces-
sitated the destruction of the loyal garrison that had
held Uganda for England. It involved a deplorable
waste of valuable European life, and gave the Waganda
the opportunity of renewing their rebellion. The cost
of its suppression was enormous, and the loss to the
country through civil war and devastation has ruined
native trade or diverted it to routes outside the British
sphere. Economically and politically the harm has
been irreparable. And the pity of it is that the
Soudanese deserve sympathy rather than blame. They
were the victims of intolerable grievances, and were
driven to rebellion by tactless treatment.

The blame for the mutiny is not to be charged
against any one man. It was due to several causes, and
Macdonald's quarrel with his men at the ravine was
only the irritant that caused the bursting of the bonds
of discipline, strained by a long course of ill-treatment.

The Soudanese had just cause for disaffection. Their

232 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

pay was miserably inadequate. The Zanzibari porters,
upon whom the Soudanese looked down with contempt,
had a pay of ten rupees a month. The Soudanese in
the Uganda Protectorate received only four rupees a
month. When they reached Eldoma, they found that
the Soudanese in the pay of the adjacent Coast Pro-
tectorate, though men of the same race, and acting in
corresponding positions, were receiving more than six
times as much pay, viz., twenty-six rupees a month.

What is still more discreditable is that even the
stingy pittance of four rupees a month was often not
paid for months after it was due. It is barely credible
that the pay of the Soudanese in Uganda should have
been sometimes six months in arrears, but the evidence
is conclusive. It is true that the men's wages were paid
in cloth, which cannot be remitted by the ordinary
financial methods. But this excuse for the Turkish
irregularity in pay is not sufficient, as some East Coast
firms had offered to transport to Uganda as many loads
as were required. Their proposals were declined,
though the Government transport service was admit-
tedly inefficient.

The consequences of the irregularity in the payment
of the Soudanese were unfortunate. As polygamous
Mohammedans, most of the Soudanese had several
wives and large families. When they did not get their
wages, they could not buy any food. It was not to be
expected that they would stand by and see their families

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 233

starve in a land of plenty. So of course they stole food
from the natives. The Waganda bitterly resented the
thefts, and the feud between the natives and our mer-
cenaries increased the unpopularity of our rule.

Another grievance of the three companies that re-
belled (the 4th, 7th, and 9th) was the fact that they
were steadily overworked, while other companies were
allowed to live at ease as garrisons in stations. These
three companies had been drilled and trained by Major
Cunningham, who did his work well. Hence, whenever
there was fighting to be done, it was less trouble to
send the three trained companies rather than break in
the others. This was particularly unfair in the case of
the Soudanese troops, because they had been allowed
small grants of land as gardens to help them in the
support of their families. While they were kept con-
tinually on the march, they had no time to till their
allotments, and the grants were useless.

The Soudanese, moreover, appear to have been tact-
lessly and unsympathetically handled by some of their
British officers. To men like Gibb and Thruston, who
knew their language and understood their nature, the
Soudanese were devoted, until they were maddened
to anger and despair. But they complained bitterly
of their treatment by the young and inexperienced
officers sent out to command them, who did not know
their language and would not listen to their complaints.
In the latter part of Major Ternan's command he

234 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

had inflicted punishments on two companies which
they bitterly resented. In Bilal Effendi's company
(the 9th) all the non-commissioned officers were de-
graded a step, because they demanded their arrears
of pay. In the company of Mabruk Effendi, the
second leader of the mutiny, the officers and sergeants
were all reduced in rank because they refused, from
their hereditary terror of witchcraft, to arrest a native
who was accused of having bewitched one of the men.

It was while the men were thus dissatisfied by
overwork, irregularity in the payment of their scanty
wage, and tactless treatment by some of their officers
that Ternan was ordered to send 300 Soudanese as
escort to Macdonald's expedition. Companies 4, 7,
and 9 were as usual selected.

They reached the ravine, smarting under a sense
of injustice for their treatment in the past, and they
were prejudiced against their future commander, for
apparently some, at least, of the Soudanese had not
forgotten or forgiven Macdonald's treatment of Selim
Bey in 1893. Opinions differ as to how far this factor
helped in the outbreak. But it is stated that Bilal
Effendi, before leaving Uganda, swore on the head
of his son, one of the most solemn of Mohammedan
oaths, that he would never serve again under Mac-
donald ; and the telegram from the Acting Consul-
General at Zanzibar, which announced the mutiny,'
states that the Soudanese declared, " they did not

UGANDA UNDER THE FOREIGN OFFICE 235

care for constant expeditions, particularly those of
Major Macdonald."

As soon as the men were transferred to their new
commander the trouble began. The Soudanese, know-
ing how they were hated by the Waganda, asked for
some assurances that their women should be properly
protected during their absence. They also asked that
some of the women might be allowed to accompany
them. Both requests were reasonable. The Soudanese
are generally attended in a campaign by their wives,
who light fires, cook food, build grass huts, tie up
loads, and do other work which the soldiers regard
as menial or for which they have no time. This
system is so regular that the Foreign Office had
arranged for some of the women to be sent on the
expedition, but the men had not been informed of it.
The men, on joining Macdonald's expedition, asked
for a shauri or conference in which to state their
grievances. Macdonald refused to see them, but told
one of the native officers, Mabruk Effendi, what
arrangements had been made. There was either some
misunderstanding over Macdonald's assurances, or
Mabruk deliberately suppressed the message. The
latter, however, is improbable, as any such treacherous
action would have been inevitably discovered at the
conference which the men, with Mabruk's approval,
demanded for the next day. On the following morning
the men drew up in line ready to march north with

236 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

part of the caravan. According to the men's account,
as reported by Jackson, the men, through their com-
mandant. Lieutenant Bright, begged for an interview
with Macdonald. He walked toward them, and the
men expected some explanations and assurances.
Instead of that they were brusquely ordered to " Right
turn, quick march." The men looked appealingly to
Lieutenant Bright, and asked, " What is the meaning
of this ? We want to see him ; he comes and won't
speak to us, but orders us away. We won't go, but
will run away."

The Soudanese accordingly fled to complain to
Jackson. Apparently they thought that if they were
to be treated thus at the first camp, what might they
not expect when they got far away from Uganda
into the deserts to the north ?

The impolicy of this unsympathetic treatment of
the Soudanese request for information may be judged
by Stanley's speech on the mutiny in the House of
Commons. The instructions issued by the Foreign
Office for the conduct of the expedition ordered that
the native tribes met with were to be treated with
consideration and respect. If, said Stanley after quot-
ing that order, the commander had also been instructed
to treat his own escort with consideration and respect,
there would have been no Soudanese mutiny. Uganda
would have been spared the most disastrous period in
the last decade of its history.

Chapter XIII
THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA

" Wherefore such persons as be illuminated with the brightest
irradiations of knowledge and of the veritie and due proportion ot
things, they are called by the learned men not phantastici but
euphantasiote, and of this sort of phantasie are all good Poets,
notable Captaines strategematique, all cunning artificers and
enginers, all Legislators, Politiciens, and Counsellours of estate,
in whose exercises the inventive part is most employed, and is to
the sound judgement of man most needful."

— George Puttenham, 1589.

WHEN in 1893 the British Government de-
cided to relieve the Chartered Company
of its work in British East Africa, high
hopes were formed of a great commercial prosperity
for the country. Our new protectorate was generally
believed to be of great economic value. The land, with
its vast areas of rich volcanic soil, was described as
of the highest agricultural capabilities. It was expected
to yield rich harvests of rubber, fibre, coffee, cotton, and
oils, as well as sufficient food stuffs to support a dense
population. The ivory trade was important and lucra-
tive, and was carried on by many native caravans.
Silver had been found a few miles from Mombasa ; a

238 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

rock that looked like quartz was abundant, and some
out-crops of it had been described 'on the maps as
"quartz very likely looking for gold." Gold itself had
been collected in the nepheline syenite of Mount
Jombo, south of Mombasa, and near this locality ought
to occur alluvial deposits that would pay local work-
ing.

Warnings that East Africa might be poorer than was
expected were uttered. Scott Elliot, for example, says,
in reference to the Nyika, that "the general impression
of the country is very bad, and its commercial future
probably means only the formation of perhaps twenty
ostrich farms. One can only buy a chicken at four
places between Mombasa and Kibwezi " — a distance
of 190 miles. But the general estimate of the economic
value of British East Africa is shown in a series of
opinions collected by Lugard, who concludes that
" East Africa is not an El Dorado, but the testimony
of all the authorities I have quoted is unanimous as
to the fertility of the soil, the healthiness of the high-
lands, the abundance of the rainfall, and the general
excellence of the climate."

Mr, W. A. Fitzgerald, who travelled through the
districts near the coast as expert botanical adviser to'
the British East Africa Company, reports that, for fifty
miles into the interior " the country is, as a whole, .
exceedingly rich and fertile, there can be no possible'
doubt ; in the coast-lands, especially, we possess an'

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 239

extent of territory which for productiveness and rich-
ness of soil it would be difficult to equal, whilst in
the extensive forests along the banks of the Sabaki
there are possibilities of future wealth and prosperity
which only require development to be realized."

Fitzgerald's opinion was formed after a study of the
coast-lands, and some of the inland provinces were
believed to be still more valuable.

Uganda, in particular, was regarded as a land " of
great commercial importance, and the urgent demand
for its annexation by the British Chambers of Com-
merce testifies to the high estimate of its economic value.
German East Africa was described as poor in contrast.
Thus, Dr. Hans Meyer admits that " in East Africa
England has decidedly had the best of the bargain.
In Uganda she possesses at once the most highly cul-
tivated and the most densely populated region in Equa-
torial Africa, and the key to the Soudan and Egypt."

Uganda being thus regarded as the commercial
" pearl of Africa," it was necessary to bring it into
direct communication with the coast. As the East
African rivers are of little value for transport, a rail-
way was said to be the prime necessity of British
East Africa.

A preliminary railway survey was made in 1892-3
under the superintendence of Major Macdonald, who
estimated that the railway from Mombasa to the
Victoria Nyanza would be 657 miles long, and for a

240 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

3 ft. 6 in. gauge would cost ^2,240,000. The interest
on this sum would amount to ^66,000 a year, and
there would be at first a loss on working expenses of
;^4,0C)0 a year (Report on Mombasa — Victoria Lake
Railway Survey Pari. Pap., 1893, C. 7025, p. 27). It
was estimated that transport from the interior would
pay for articles that could afford '^d. per ton-mile
rate, or 22.y. a ton from the lake to the coast. Hence,
for a moderate liability of ;^70,ooo a year, a railway
could be laid from the coast to the lake. It was
predicted that with these facilities for transport a trade
would soon develop, sufficient to pay for the adminis-
tration of the country.

The railway was begun in 1895, and is still in
progress. It is under the management of a Foreign
Office Committee, of which the chairman was Sir Percy
Anderson, succeeded after his death in 1896 by Sir
Francis Bertie and Sir Clement Hill ; Mr. George
Whitehouse was appointed local engineer, and Sir L.
O'Callaghan the managing director in London. Fresh
surveys reduced the length of line required to 550 miles,
and, to further lower the cost, the gauge was reduced
to a metre. But this year (1900), in addition to
the original vote of ;^3,ooo,ooo, which is ^76o,0(X) (or
a third) more than Macdonald's estimate, an extra
;^ 1, 930,000 has been voted for the work.

The railway has already been voted more than twice
as much as the first estimate, and it will probably cost

ll

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 241

still more before it is finished. Though it is a wild
exaggeration to describe it as " the English Panama,"
it is hopeless to expect it to pay interest on its capital.
But if, as may reasonably be expected, it pays its
working expenses, its construction will have been
justified, as it was built for political reasons, and not
as a commercial speculation.

I

Whether the Uganda Railway will be a success, the
'uture alone can decide. But the character of the
British Imperial administration in British East Africa
is a topic fairly open to discussion, for there are six
years' results on which to base an opinion.

The rule of the Foreign Office has been accompanied
by great progress, for most of which the Foreign Office
and its East African staff deserve the credit.

Mombasa from an Arab town has become a
Europeanized commercial city ; roads have been built ;
transport improved ; the railway has been steadily
pushed inland, and towns have grown up beside it ;
some of the most turbulent tribes have been over-
awed by the establishment of forts in their districts ;
the Pokomo of the Tana have received protection from
the raids of the Masai and Somali ; the Wakamba
have learnt to appreciate the benefits of European
government, and to assist with reliable work. Never-
theless, it must be admitted that the great expectations
of 1894 have not been fulfilled. The progress of the

R

242 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

country has been very partial. The volume of external
trade has increased, owing to the influx of railway
officials and the import of railway plant. But the
natural trade has not grown ; old trade routes have
been abandoned and native markets closed ; land has
gone out of cultivation ; pestilence and famine have
swept through the country, and the population has
been reduced by war, disease, and emigration.

The results have been most disappointing to those
who hailed the establishment of Imperial rule as
a guarantee that East Africa would soon enjoy a
better peace than she has ever known. The disap-
pointment has been all the more bitter as there has
been a heavy loss of valuable European life, and the
failures have occurred in spite of the noblest and self-
sacrificing efforts of a devoted band of officials.

The causes of the disappointing results of the British
rule are not far to seek. They are painfully obvious.
The whole of the blame does not rest with man. Some
of the worst faults lie in the structure of the universe.
British East Africa is, and must always be, a trouble-
some country to rule, and the geographical conditions
render its government, from a distant office on second-
hand knowledge of its needs, exceptionally difficult.

The first estimates of the value of the country were
far too optimistic. Colonel Pearson, in his despatches
on the campaign against the rebel Mazrui, tells us
that " the physical difficulties offered by the country

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 243

to the movement of troops are far beyond any that
have been recorded 01 expeditions in India. The
bHstering force of the sun, the stifling heat of the
jungles, and the scarcity of water, render operations in
the lowlands near the coast extremely arduous and
trying."

Moreover, during the last six years British East
Africa has had persistent ill-luck. Pestilence, drought,
and famine are enemies that, in a comparatively un-
known land, can neither be foreseen nor controlled ;
and they have devastated British East Africa, and
engendered widespread misery and a spirit of unrest
that have caused especial irritation against civilized
restraint.

But the blame for the confusion in British East
Africa is not all extra-human. The clumsiness of man
and the conservatism of government systems have
been only too powerful for evil. Rebellion is only
too easily roused among people so governed by habit
and so saturated with superstition as negroes, when
their rulers fail to realize the spiritual basis of fetish
worship and despise reverence for blocks of wood and
stone as mere heathen folly. It is not difficult to
point out blunders after they have been advertised by
their results, and to grumble at acts ot impatience
committed by men perhaps suffering from a burning
fever or abscessed livers in a hot and unhealthy
climate. Lord Curzon once eloquently expressed his

244 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

surprise that men working under such trying con-
ditions as our Uganda staff have not committed more
and greater blunders. And no one can read the his-
tory of British East Africa without the highest
admiration for the work of European officials. England
has been represented in East Africa by men who have
worked there in accordance with the best traditions
of our colonial policy. Thus amongst the administra-
tors there have been George S. Mackenzie and J. R. W.
Piggott, both of whom by tact and sympathy secured
the goodwill of the leading Arabs during the rule of
the British East Africa Company ; and Sir A. Hard-
inge, whose intimate knowledge of Arab character has
enabled him to reconcile the planters of Zanzibar and
Pemba to our anti-slavery legislation. There have
been model district administrators, such as Ainsworth
of Machakos, Hobley in Kavirondo, Hall in Kikuyu,
Grant in Usogo, and Forster in Unyoro. Confidence
in British justice has been established by Jenner's ^
integrity and impartiality as Chief Judge at Mombasa.
Men, such as Bird Thompson at Witu, Pulteney in
Unyoro, Rogers at Lamu, Sitwell in Toru, Cunning-
ham and Gibb in Uganda, though in military com-
mands, have restrained their natural instinct for fight-
ing and have worked with single-souled devotion and
untiring patience at the peaceful administration of

* The sad news that Jenner was killed by the southern Somali
was received after this chapter was in type.

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 245

their districts. Finally, men like George Wilson and
F. J. Jackson, owing to their sympathy with the
natives, have been able to carry the country through
crises in its history.

To mention individuals is no doubt invidious ; the
men named are but samples of the rest. It is the
fact that the majority of the British East African
staff have worked sincerely and disinterestedly for the
welfare of the country, that makes so deplorable the
frequent waste of their sacrifices by the clumsiness of
inexperienced colleagues and the adoption of official
methods unsuited to local conditions.

The main cause of our disasters in the rule of the
Foreign Office, as in that of its predecessor, the British
East Africa Company, has been the lack of a policy
based on a scientific knowledge of the country and
its people, framed in accordance with the views of the
local authorities as to what is practically and economi-
cally possible, and continuously and consistently carried
out, even despite the prejudices of philanthropists at
home and the ambitions of military officials abroad.

The British East Africa Company was ruined by
the attempt suddenly to introduce a government, on
philanthropic principles, into a country too poor to
afford a sudden revolution of its industrial system,
and to pay for the luxury of social experiments.

The policy enforced from home by the Company
was of extraneous origin, and the climate of East

246 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Africa was fatal to it. The main fault of the Foreign
Office rule has been exactly the reverse : either it has
not had any consistent policy or ideal of its own, or
it has failed to insist on the adoption of that policy
by its agents in East Africa. There has been a rapid
succession of Commissioners and Acting Commis-
sioners, who have been allowed to do what they
wanted, whether or not it was consistent with the acts
of their predecessors or the views of the Government.
Since 1893 Uganda has been governed successively
by Portal, Macdonald, Colvile, Jackson, Berkeley,
Ternan, Jackson, Wilson, Berkeley, and finally Sir
Harry Johnston. The changes of policy with these
changes of men have been sudden and complete.
Portal's .system, of a minimum interference in local
administration and peace with neighbouring states,
was promptly reversed by his successor. An adven-
turous policy has naturally been more popular in
Uganda, for it has been better rewarded at home
than attempts at the quiet development of the country.
The man, who made successfully one of those " nigger
hunts," which in Equatorial Africa are misnamed wars,
has gained distinction and decoration, in preference to
the man who kept his province in peace by sympa-
thetic and patient administration. The Chinese system
of paying a doctor most when he attends his patient
least might well be adopted for rewarding soldiers who
have civilian duties. Some of the wars and punitive

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 247

expeditions of the past few years have been no doubt
inevitable and just. They have been "the cruel wars
of peace." But some of the military expeditions in
East Africa have been simply criminal in their folly
and thoughtlessness.

In one instance a village of a chief, with whom it
was especially necessary that friendly relations should
be maintained, was attacked and looted by an officer
on his way home from Uganda out of sheer mischief
Once on a time the chief had been troublesome, but
he had been cajoled into good behaviour by the tact-
ful handling of the officer in command of the district ;
and his work of years was undone in an afternoon by
the caprice of an irresponsible officer from a distant
province.

Acts such as these not only shatter the confidence
of the natives, but they dishearten the men whose
work is thus lightly ruined.

Some of the incidents that have attended British
conquests of fractious tribes have been perfectly hor-
rible, as is admitted by the men who were forced to
commit them. Thruston's interesting memoir tells us
of several which occurred during the campaign that
ruined the once fertile and well-peopled country of
Unyoro. Thruston relates that, during a night march
on Kabarega's stronghold in 1894, he passed a hut
with three men sitting inside it smoking, " It was
impossible that we could pass without being dis-

248 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

covered, so I stopped, and, turning round, made a sign
to the soldiers. As I did so, one of the men got up
and went towards the door. But the soldiers had
understood me well ; they had fixed their bayonets.
•In a moment a dozen of them had run into the house
and silently done their work. This transaction, I know,
comes very near to mere assassination."

Thruston describes his duty in Unyoro as that of
" a captain of Bashi-Bazouks, a raider, and an ivory
thief" ; and he complains, " I was sick of raids and
bloodshed, and I longed to have done with them."
He therefore wrote to Kabarega, the king of the
country, to beg him to submit. But Thruston tells
us that " this letter was promptly repudiated by the
Foreign Office," and endorses the opinion expressed
by Mr. Byles in the House of Commons, that every
one who had been in any way connected with Un-
yoro ought to be thoroughly ashamed of himself — a
condemnation which Thruston candidly accepted for
himself.

The work of civilian administration in East Africa
has also been seriously hindered by the quarrels of
the missions and their interference in politics. The
difficulty thus introduced into the government of
Uganda has been admitted by every independent
visitor to the country.

I have had to criticise the missionaries in Chapter

THE UGANDA RAILWAY : A SIKKI' GRADIENT.

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 249

XI., and should like to remark that I have no animus
against them. I had taken a keen interest in mission
work, and went to East Africa in full sympathy with it.
I realized that the missionaries are the one section of
Europeans in an uncivilized community whose interests
are one with the natives, whom they best can protect
against ill-treatment by traders or officials.^ The
missions in East Africa have done work which every
student of that country must admire, from its untiring
patience, its educational success as at Freretown, and
the extent of its civilizing influence as in Uganda. The
East African Mission has on its roll the names of men
of saintly life and of Christian spirit, like Krapf and
Rebmann of the old Mombasa Mission, Mackay and
Tucker of Uganda, Hooper of Jelori, Smith and
Edwards of Freretown, and W. E. Taylor of Mom-
basa. But the work of these men has been hampered
by the political interference of the missionaries as a
body. Missionary intervention in politics has been as
disastrous in Eastern Africa as it has been in other
parts of the continent.

The effort of the London Missionary Society's agents
to make South Africa into a group of native states
ruled by local chiefs, under the guidance of missionary
advisers, was one great cause of the feud at the Cape
between the English and the Dutch settlers. In

' As in the case of Bishop Tucker's excellent intervention in
Toru, p. 179.

250 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Uganda, in the British East African coast-lands, and
in British Central Africa, the political action of the
missionaries has done deplorable harm to the countries,
to the missions, and to the missionaries. It would no
doubt often have been difficult for the missionaries to
avoid intervention ; but some of them seem to have
been only too willing to exchange preaching for the
excitement of political intrigue.

A minute of the Church Missionary Society declares
that " one of the fundamental principles of the Society
is that the committee and missionaries must keep clear
of politics." This rule may be obeyed in Asia, but in
Uganda it has many a time been absolutely neglected.
Indeed, Sir Gerald Portal asserted that the race for
converts in Uganda was synonymous with a race for
political power. Now, however, there can be no doubt
about the future ownership of Uganda ; so we may
hope that the Church Missionary Society will enforce
its own wise rule, that its agents are not to interfere
in political affairs. Until the missionaries are per-
suaded to work on this principle, it is idle to expect
African natives to believe that missions are solely in-
spired by religious motives.

A second change that is wanted is more tolerance
for rival missions. That the bitter feud between the
Catholics and Protestants in Uganda has been the great
difficulty in ruling that country has been recognised by
every independent visitor. The bitterness between the

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 251

two parties can be best illustrated by extracts from the
writings of the missionaries themselves. The diary of
the French Mission in Uganda is printed in the official
Chronique Trimestrielle de la Societe des Missionaires
d'Afrique {Peres-B lanes). This journal, which is now in
its twenty-first year, is especially instructive, as it is not
issued for general circulation. A notice, printed on both
leaves of the cover, reminds all whom it may concern
that the Chronique Trimestrielle, being published ex-
clusively for the Missionary Fathers, ought not to be
communicated to any other person whatever without
the permission of the " Superieurs majeurs." Care is
taken to prevent the journal falling into the hands of
what it calls " Protestant pagans " ; but copies are occa-
sionally read by others than the White Fathers, and a
few quotations will illustrate the spirit in which some
members of the Catholic Mission conduct their work.
The two mottoes of the order are the texts, " Behold,
how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell
together in unity," and " It [the multitude of them that
believed] was of one heart and one soul." How the
missionaries interpret these maxims is shown by the
following passages, all of which are taken from one
number of the Chronique Trimestrielle : —

"What a pity that at Rubaga [the headquarters of
the French Mission] there is not a missionary specially
charged with the conversion of the Protestants." Any
such arrangement is unnecessary, since it appears from

25^ BRITISH EAST AFRICA

the diary that the whole staff are ready to devote their
best energies to this branch of the work. A few pages
earlier is the following passage, " Three teachers armed
with a letter from Mwanga leave for Budu to build a
church there and introduce heresy into our beloved
province. The progress and success of Catholicism in
the Protestant provinces make the heretics hope for
similar results in Budu. But they will try in vain ; for
one proselyte neophyte they may make from us, we
will glean a hundred from them." The enthusiasm with
which the conversion of Protestants is undertaken is
illustrated by a remark on the next page. "January
30th. Departure of Fathers Gaudibert and Jacquet for
Bulamwezi. Their baggage is light, but they are as
gay as larks — they are going to evangelize a Protestant
province." Mr. Wilson, the Acting Commissioner at
Kampala, had occasion to protest to the king against
some of Father Gaudibert's proceedings during the
course of this evangelical tour. The complaint is re-
peated in the journal as follows, with a characteristic
comment, " ' He [Father Gaudibert] does harm in Bula-
mwezi ; he has many houses built by force. The whites
of Namirembe [the headquarters of the Church Mis-
sionary Society in Uganda] have denounced him to
me.' Bravo, Father Gaudibert. Mr. Wilson pays
you a compliment to-day. The Protestants curse you.
That proves that you do good, and what are these
houses, which cause you to be detested by the chiefs of]

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 253

Kampala and the Reverends, but chapels wherein you
collect your catechumens, more numerous every day,
converted from Protestantism ? " A week later Father
Gaudibert returned to the French central station, re-
joicing in the salvation of " a joyful band of neophytes
and catechumens torn from Protestantism. This is the
wheat that with the help of God he has known how to
glean in the midst of thistles." " During the two past
months nine chapels have been built in the midst of the
Protestant provinces at the instigation of the cate-
chists and with the help of the catechumens. But in
the midst of what broils, what cries of rage from the
Protestants ? God alone knows. May the Blessed
Virgin continue her protection and give us courage
in our militant life."

Zeal on the part of the Protestant agents is attributed
to inspiration from a different source. " Thousands of
printed leaflets are circulating in the capital of Uganda ;
men posted at every street corner distribute them to
the passers-by. It is Pilkington, the crack-brained
{exalte) minister of Namirembe, who writes a collective
letter to all the Buganda from England. This minister,
who during his sojourn in Uganda had all the symptoms
of diabolical possession, speaks in this letter of his
laborious scriptural works — six books were already
printed, and others in preparation, with which he will
not delay inundating the country."

The Catholic converts, however, are not always gained

254 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

by the methods of the Church mihtant. The following
entry shows that recruits are obtained by purchase as
well as by preaching, " April 20th. A woman escapes
from her Mussulman master, and entreats me to buy
her. Four years ago she began to pray daily, morning
and evening, and she has been faithful to her prayers ;
in spite of being forbidden and bastinadoed by her
master, she has had herself secretly instructed in the
catechism, which she knows by heart. The Mussulman,
despairing of corrupting her, has resolved to sell her
to a pagan, I buy this poor soul for 5,500 cowries."
Father Gaudibert's method of arguing with heretics he
describes as follows: —

" About ten o'clock in the morning a grand diable 01
a negro, whose body is all covered with horrid sores,
presents himself to me. I have seldom seen a man of
so repulsive an aspect. His hideous face, stupefied by
abuse of mwenge [native beer], presents to the frightened
gaze two eyes terribly reddened by smoking hemp.

" ' Where do you come from .-* '

" * I come from Namirembe [the Church Missionary
Society's headquarters]. The whites have sent me here
to carry greetings to the lost children of the house of God.'.|

" ' But these reverend gentlemen have not told you toj
come to me, I think ? '

" ' They told me to go everywhere, and have fear of no|
one. But if I had not convinced the Pope's white man]
of error, people would refuse the greeting I bring.'

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 255

" ' No, my dear friend, they could not refuse greetings
presented by so distinguished a man. Are not your
hemp-reddened eyes and the infectious odour that is
exhaled by your legs enough to unite round you all the
Buganda ? '

" ' Laugh at me, but listen ! '
» " * I am not laughing ; I am telling the truth pure
and simple.'

" ' This is what the Lord sends me to tell you.'

" * Wait a minute ; what is your name ? '

" ' My name is Eliya ; on this earth my master is
Mugema, but in truth I have no other master than
that one who says, *' There is only one Master," and
who has written the evangel I hold in my hand, and
which leaves me neither night nor day.'

" ' Take care not to dirty it with the pus which
flows from your body.'

" ' The Lord sends me to tell you that you are a
liar. The day of judgment draws near ; yet a little
while

"'la liar ? Thanks for your politeness ; but tell
me why I'm a liar.'

" * Yes, you are a liar, because you teach that Peter
is the vicar of Jesus Christ. Open the evangel. Would
our Lord Jesus Christ have entrusted His Holy {sic)
Mother to John if Peter had been His vicar ? Would
the apostles united at Jerusalem have sent Peter into
Samaria if Peter had been their chief ? Would Jesus

255 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

have rebuffed Peter as He did (St. John xxi. 20-23) if
He had wished that Peter should be His vicar ? ' etc., etc.

" I answer all these old objections very seriously to
edify the catechumens present, and excite their laughter
against this inspired man, whom I would willingly
call Pilkingtonian. He, in fact, recalls very well a
fool I once knew at the capital. That visionary pre-
tended to have received the Holy Spirit in the island
of Kome, and wished to communicate it to every
one, whether they wished or not. What an assault
I had to endure as my share ! Briefly, my good
negro, finding it impossible to continue the argument,
avowed himself vanquished and changed his weapons.
He passed from insolent discussion to downright insult.

" * You white man of Kasala, and all belonging to
you, you deceive your people, you teach that the
Pope is God.'

" ' I teach that the Pope is God ? '

" ' Yes, you.'

" ' Well, as you are so ill-informed, go and ask those
whom I teach what is my doctrine.' And, saying
this, I show him the door. My demoniac refusing to
go, I am obliged to take him by the arm and put
him outside. I have all the trouble in the world to
prevent my people accompanying this by blows.

" ' It is the Lord you are driving away,' he cries,
like one possessed ; ' The day of judgment is near.' "

This, it must be remembered, is Pere Gaudibert's

1

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 257

own account of how he spreads the gospel of Christ
among the Waganda. It is distressing enough that
any native on visiting a Christian mission station
should be reviled and ridiculed and then forcibly-
expelled. But it is worse that the missionary should
describe the incident with manifest pleasure and with-
out the slightest feeling of shame. It is still more
deplorable that such a narrative should be circulated
by the authorities of the Order of the White Fathers
among their other stations, apparently as an instance
of commendable zeal.

Further, it is to be hoped that the missionaries will
become not only more tolerant towards one another,
but more patient in demanding reforms of local in-
stitutions.

Slavery, when it involved slave-raiding in Africa, a
Transatlantic voyage in a crowded slave ship, and
work under the harsh discipline of an American
plantation, deserved every epithet that its opponents
hurled against it. But this type of slavery has dis-
appeared from British East Africa. What is there
called slavery is a feudal system which is freedom
itself compared with the rigid rules and imprison-
ment of a South African mining compound. The
agitation, in favour of the immediate abolition of East
! African serfdom owes its strength to feelings that have
I survived from the crusade of Clarkson and Wilberforce

258 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

Even thirty years ago some missionaries admitted
that the evils of domestic slavery in East Africa
had been exaggerated. In 1873 ^^^v. C. New ob-
jected to the transportation of the freed slaves to
the settlements established for them in Mauritius, the
Seychelles, Bombay and Aden, because in those places
the slaves had to live under discipline and learn
various uncongenial subjects — a lot which they re-
garded as slavery under a less sympathetic and stronger
master than they would otherwise have had. " From
personal intercourse," says New, " I found that these
freed people feel their exile more than they did their
original slavery."

That the abuses of domestic serfdom are now in-
significant is obvious from the difficulty found by the
anti-slavery advocates in discovering sensational scan-
dals. The Anti-slavery Society has been misled into
using bogus evidence. In September, 1896, it pub-
lished in its organ, The Anti-slavery Reporter, a
photograph of some men in chains, under the title
" Slavery in Zanzibar." The picture was re-published
in a pamphlet in 1897, when it was described as
" A group of slaves under the British flag, Zanzibar,"
and "Slavery in Zanzibar, 1896." The photograph
in reality was an old photograph showing a German
soldier guarding some prisoners at Dar-es-Salaam in
German East Africa.

If the Society, in spite of its enterprising agents

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 259

in British East Africa, has to use such evidence as
this, the existing evils cannot be extensive. Never-
theless the British- public has failed to recognise
the difference between the slavery of the American
sugar plantations and the domestic serfdom of East
Africa, It has, accordingly, forced the British Govern-
ment to impose on the East African coast-lands
labour reforms for which the people were not ready.
The effect has therefore been disastrous.

The Germans have been wiser. They began an
equally vigorous campaign against slavery. The
German Anti-slavery Committee was nothing behind
the British Anti-slavery Society in the vigour of its
denunciations of slavery and in its efforts to destroy it.
But the German administrators soon realized the harm
that would result from precipitate interference with
domestic serfdom, and they were allowed to proceed
slowly. Hence, though they started work in the face
of a stronger native prejudice than we did, they have
managed to rule their territories without any such
serious rebellions as those of Uganda and the Mazrui,
which have done such irreparable harm in British
East Africa.

So far this chapter has been merely critical. What
suggestions, it may be asked, can be made to improve
our administrative methods, so as to avoid evils and
injustice in the future ?

26o BRITISH EAST AFRICA

The crying need of East Africa is consistent ad-
ministration by men who know the country and under-
stand its people. The present Commissioner is the
first ruler sent out with full powers who has had con-
siderable experience of the Bantu races. If Sir Harry
Johnston had only been sent out five years earlier,
how different the story of British East Africa might
have been ! If his appointment means that there is
to be a new system in the selection of officials, then
his administration marks the beginning of a brighter
era in East Africa.

A radical reform is also necessary in the method of
filling the subordinate appointments.

At present British East Africa is governed by the
Foreign Office. The qualifications required in diplo-
matic and consular work are not those wanted for the
management of equatorial railways and the government
of uncivilized tribes of negroes. The Foreign Office
has a staff which has been trained for diplomatic and
consular work ; but it has no body of men at its dis-
posal who understand the conditions of Equatorial
Africa, and who are at the same time available for
appointments in East Africa. The Foreign Office has
to borrow the services of soldiers, who have learnt to
love the formal discipline of European armies, and will
even expect native levies to show the self-restraint of
British troops. In cases of emergency, the Foreign
Office calls for help from India ; and, though some

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 261

of the men of Indian training have achieved brilliant
success, others appear to have tried ruling excitable
" Fuzzy-Wuzzies " and turbulent Masai as if they were
Bengali. The consequences have been tragic.

The primary need of our possessions in Equatorial
Africa is a special service of men appointed by open
competition, as in the Indian Civil Service. According
to the present system, the selection of men is neces-
sarily somewhat haphazard. A man is sent for a few
years' work to East Africa ; thence he is promoted to
act as consul at a Mediterranean watering place or
an American port. Aware that promotion may at any
time lead to his sudden removal to another continent,
■ he has no particular inducement to take much interest
iin the country or its people. As soon as a man begins
to understand the natives and speak their language,
he may be transferred. Similarly, a young official in
British East Africa may at any time have placed over
his head a man who knows nothing of Africa or
African methods, and may do serious mischief before
he learns to take advice from his more experienced
juniors.

A special service for tropical Africa is needed, not
only for the good of our African possessions, but in
the interests of the normal work of the Foreign Office.
Berths in other parts of the world have to be found
for men who have earned promotion in Equatorial
Africa. The most striking illustration of the disad-

262 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

vantages of this system is the case of Sir Claude
Macdonald, who made a great reputation by the high
character and brilliant success of his African work.
He was rewarded by promotion to the Embassy at
Pekin, a position in which full success may have been
impossible to any one, though some of Macdonald's
critics say that a man more experienced in the methods
of Chinese and Russian diplomacy would have had a
better chance. At any rate, this case illustrates the
danger of rewarding success in African administration
by promotion to diplomatic duties, which call for differ-
ent qualities and training.

The separation of the management of East Africa
from the ordinary work of the Foreign Office is there-
fore advisable, in the interests both of the country and
of the Foreign Office. Upon this supposition it has
been proposed to transfer British East Africa to the
charge of the Colonial Office. The change appears
natural to those who do not realize the difference be-
tween a white man's colony and a dependency which
is the home of a numerous and inferior race. What
would have been the history of India had it been
placed under the Colonial Office? and what may not
be the history of our African possessions were they
placed under the conditions which have made of the
government of India the most magnificent achievement
of our race ? The Foreign Office has probably managed
East Africa as economically and as well as any London

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 263

office could have done during the trying times of the
transition. The main faults to be found with it have
been its inefficient curb on militarism, and its steady
defence of agents who have blundered, even when they
have expressly disobeyed its orders and wrecked its
policy. Loyally to defend servants who have done
their best is an absolute necessity in the case of our
representatives abroad, whose credit has to be main-
tained in the eyes of foreigners. They support their
men and we have to support ours. But the historic
tradition of the Foreign Office unfits it for manag-
ing a commercial and administrative service. And this
policy in East Africa has been attended with a very
unfortunate result. It has disheartened the officials,
whose work has been spoiled, to see blunders not only
escape censure, but secure rewards that should only
have been earned by complete success.

In addition to the need for reforms in our adminis-
trative system, we need a fundamental change in policy.
Greater efforts should be made to use local men and
materials. There had been no systematic attempt to
ascertain the economic resources of the country before
the arrival of Sir H. Johnston, and even now the funds
at his disposal for this purpose are inadequate.

" Hitherto," said Lugard in 1894, and it is still truer
to-day, " they [the Germans] have set us an example
in the thorough and practical way in which they set

264 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

about to develop their territories, though, as regards
tact with the natives, the advantage, perhaps, lies with
us. Even so much as three years before it was adminis-
tered, preliminary expeditions of experts and scientists
were sent to German East Africa (in 1885) to report
on the geology, climate, soil, and vegetation, and this
was immediately followed by the establishment of plan-
tations, so that some thirty were in existence in 1888."

Even more important than the discovery of the
available economic products of East Africa is the need
for more use of native help in the management of the
country.

What success would England have gained in India
had we ignored the help of native rulers? In the civili-
zation of British East Africa, the more intelligent races
can give invaluable assistance. The native merchants
of the coast towns can conduct a profitable trade where
no European could pay his expenses. For some con-
siderable time to come trade with the less accessible
portions of British East Africa must be left to native
caravans. In this method of business the Arabs and
Suahili are experts. Their assistance is indispensable
for the commercial development of the country.

It may be urged that any alliance with the Arabs
would be immoral, as their passion for slave-raiding is
ineradicable. As the slave business was profitable, and
the Arabs do not regard it as objectionable, no doubt
they would engage in it if they could do so safely.

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 265

But the East Coast Arabs and Suahili are sufficiently
intelligent to appreciate the benefits of a European con-
nection. " We are children, you are men," said to me
Omari Hamadi, the former commander of the Witu
army. The leading natives on the coast are eager for
European help, and will make sacrifices to secure it.
The loyal assistance given by the Lewali of Melindi is
an instance of the native readiness to co-operate with
the British administrators. But to secure the continued
help of the natives they must be fairly treated. They
will not help if their religion is to be officially attacked,
if their sentiments are to be outraged by proposals to
declare polygamy illegal and all children of concubines
illegitimate, and if their trade is to be harassed by
finicking regulations.

In many provinces of British East Africa there were
chiefs ready to support us with their power and influence
in the management of the country. Kabarega in
Unyoro, Gabriel in Uganda, and Mbaruk of Gazi may
be quoted as examples of natives who were willing
to help us. But what encouragement did they meet ?
Kabarega is a political prisoner in Somali-land, practi-
cally because he helped his people to resist being placed
in bondage to their hereditary foes, Gabriel is an outlaw.
Mbaruk of Gazi, in spite of loyal service to the British
and a consuming anxiety for peace, has been driven into
rebellion and chased with his people into German terri-
tory ; his alternative was the dishonourable surrender of

266 BRITISH EAST AFRICA

a kinsman, whose sin was resistance to an admittedly-
unjust decree.

When the' British Government began the administra-
tion of British East Africa, in 1895, the greatest need of
the country was peace. The protection of the weaker
tribes against the tyranny of the strong was the
most immediate necessity. Peace has been secured
by a series of sanguinary wars, but it seems to have
been at length obtained. The Pokomo are now secure
from Somali and Suahili raids ; the Wakamba can till
the plains and valleys around their hills ; the Masai are
being trained as police to protect the people they once
pillaged. We have done our first duty : —

" Make ye sure to each his own,
That he reap where he hath sown.
By the peace among your peoples let men know ye serve the Lord."

We have now to apply the second of the two prin-
ciples to which our Empire owes its success. Sir Alfred
Milner, in his England in Egypt, remarks that " the
true nature of British influence is a weight, and a de-
cisive weight, cast into the right scale, in the struggle
of the better elements of Egyptian society against the
worse." It should be the aim of British policy that this
definition could be truly applied to our influence
throughout our African territories. Kabarega, king of
Unyoro ; Mbaruk, the chief of Gazi ; Selim Bey, the
defender of the Equatorial Provinces against the

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA 267

Mahdists, are representatives of the best and most
intelligent classes in the East African population. But
the fate of these men shows that we have not yet learnt
how to make the best use of the better element in East
African society. Pulteney's pacification of Southern
Unyoro, Lugard's defence of Uganda, Ainsworth's
management in Ukambani, and the invaluable assistance
rendered to the British East Africa Company by the
Lewali of Melindi and Mombasa show what excellent
results may be obtained by co-operation with the native
leaders, if efforts be made to educate them into useful-
ness, and not to crush them into impotence.

Therefore, the main requirement for that successful ad-
ministration of British East Africa is a government that
will curb militarism, raise a permanent trained staff of
men whose hearts are in their work, scientifically develop
the natural resources of the country, and enlist the
sympathetic co-operation of the better elements in the
native population. But successful administration will
not alone save East Africa. It will give the country
peace and security and prosperity ; but these benefits
will be half wasted unless they be used as a basis for
further progress by a patient and practical philanthropy,
\ and by a tolerant missionary enterprise working in
\ accordance with Christ's command, " Into whatsoever
house ye enter, first say, ' Peace be to this house.' "

MAP OF

IBRITISH EAST.4FRICA

to accompaiiv

The Foundations of British East Africa!'
b^ Prof. J. W. Gregory, D.Sc.

Statate Mies

o

30 lOO 150 200
Siibmarinc Cables

QThjlip &■ SarbjZaridcnj icJLiverpooV-

lIor<it:<- Mersholl & Sou. London

c

Vt0

INDEX

Albert Nyanza, 13

Discovered by Baker, 79
Arab Explorers, 45

Baker, Samuel, 78, 79, 104
Bantu Tribes, 18, 108
Belesoni Canal, 135
British East Africa Company, 5,
123

and slavery, 131, 150

and Witu, 134

and Germany, 132

and the Mazrui, 150

and Lugard, 175
Burton, Sir Richard, 53

and Nile Sources, 72

Catholic Missionaries, 119, 250
Colvile, Gen. Sir Henry, 212
Congo Free State, 125
Cooley's Criticisms, 67

Denhardt, 45

Economic Value of British East
Africa, 238

Emin Pasha, 169, 187

Equatorial Africa,Early Explora-
tion of, 28

European Expedition into
British East Africa, The
First, 59

Fischer's, Dr. G. A., Expedition,

82
Foreign Office Rule, 246, 260
French, The, in East Africa, 221
Frere, Sir Bartle, 69

Galla, The, 22

Geography of BritishEastAfrica,

3, 27
German Aggression, 137

Treaty with Uganda, 172
Germany and Zanzibar, 126

and Witu, 134
Grant, 74

Hannington, Bishop, 121
Hardinge, Sir A., 149, 151, 244

Kalema, King of Uganda, 163,

168
Kapti Plains, 10
Karagwe, People of, 75
Kavirondo, The natives of, 21
Kikuya Country, 90
Kilima Njaro, 60
Kirk, Sir John, 128
Krapf, Dr. Ludwig, 53

and the Galla, 55

at Mombasa, 55

translations into Suahili, 56

and Rebmann, 56, 70

and Inland Missions, 59

269

270

INDEX

Krapf, Dr. Ludwig, continued.
and the Wa-Kamba, 6i
and Methodist Mission, 65
criticism of, 68

Livingstone, 67, 74
and Stanley, 106

Lothaire, Major, 167

Lugard, Gen. F. D., 173, 174
first visit to Uganda, 177
joins British East Africa

Company, 175
and religious disputes, 181, 191
and Selim Bey, 184, 210
war in Uganda, 194

Mackay, A. M., 118, 169
Mackenzie, George S., 130, 147,

244
Masai, The, 20, 82
and Thomson, 86
and Carl Peters, 140
Mazrui, The, 144

Cause of Rebellion, 149
Commencement of, 152
end and result of, 161
Mbaruk of Gazi, 146, 150, 152,

156, 265
Missions, 18, 48, 53, 65, 104, 1 14,
125, 148, 162, 169, 170,
179, 248
Mombasa, 145, 241
Mtesa, King of Uganda, 'j'j., 1 10
and Christianity, 114, 120
Death of, 121
Mvi^anga, King of Uganda, 121,
162, 164, 168, 194, 219

Natives of British East Africa, 17
New, Charles, 66

and Mbaruk, 146

Ascent of Kilima Njaro, 67
Nile, The Sources of the, 31, 71,
78, 80, 125

Pearson, Col, Expedition against

Mbaruk, 160
" Periplus of the Red Sea, The,"

49
Peters, Dr. Carl, 138, 171
Physical Geography of British

East Africa, 6
Portal, Sir Gerald, 200
Portuguese and East Africa, 43
Ptolemy's account of the Coast

of East Africa, 33
Pulteney, Major, 216
Pygmies, 23

Rebmann, 56
and Inland Missions, 59
return home, 69
Rift Valley, 11, 84, 93

Sanson d' Abbeville's Map, 48
Selim Bey, 186, 206
Shimba Expedition, 159
Slavery, 105, 131, 149, 175, 257

and Lugard, 175
Soudanese Mutiny, 226
Speke, John Hanning, 72

Discovery of Victoria Nyanza,

Second Expedition with Grant,

74
and the Karagwe People, 75

INDEX

271

Speke, John Hanmng, conimued.

journey to Uganda, 77

and Mtesa, 1 1 1
Stanley, H. M., 106

and the slave trade, 107

and Uganda, 109

and Mtesa, 112

translation of Scriptures, 115

first journey across Africa, 124

Congo Free State, 125
Stokes, 164

and Mwanga, 167

and Lugard, 180
Suahili, The, 19, 157
Szek's, Teleki von. Expedition, 89

and the Kikuya, 91

and Lake Samburu, 94

Takaunga Dispute, 150
Thomson's, Joseph, Expedition,

84
Thruston, 247
Tucker, Bishop, 179

Uganda, 12
visited by Speke and Grant, 77
German Road to, 81
Arab Traders' route, 81
Stanley's visit to, 109
Government under Mtesa, 113
as amission field, 116
Catholic missionaries, 119
and Mwanga, 121
and Carl Peters, 138, 171
Rebellion of Christians and

Mohammedans, 163
and Kiwevva, 163
Treaty with Germany, 172

Uganda, continued.

under British protection, 173
and British East Africa Com-
pany, 173
entered by Lugard, 177
religious difficulties, 181
Sir William Mackinnon, 189
War breaks out, 194
and Foreign Office, 199
Sir Gerald Portal's Report,

200
Lord Rosebery and, 200
Sir J. R. L. Macdonald, 205
Arrest of Selim Bey, 207
Revolt in Western, 221
and the French, 221
" Pearl of Africa," 239
Railway, 239

Unyoro Campaign, 213

Van Hohnel, 89

Vasco da Gama's Expedition, 38
Victoria Nyanza, discovery of, 73
Thomson's Expedition, 88
explored by Stanley, 107

Waganda, The, 19
Wahuma, The, in Uganda, 109
Wakefield, 66
Williams, Capt., 189
Wissmann, Lieut., 138
Witu, 133

Massacre of German Traders
in, 141

Rebellion, 142

Zanzibar and Germany, 127
and British East Africa Com-
pany, 129

Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.

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