CHAPTER X

 Government send an expedition into my country to take over the administration—Go with my followers to meet the Government officials—Am asked to disarm my followers by the Government officials, who are in a state of panic—Consent to this to allay their fears, and am then put under arrest—Am charged with “dacoity”- -Am sent down to Mombasa to be tried, and placed in the jail—Am released on bail—Tried and acquitted—I am appointed intelligence officer, and guide to a Government expedition into the Kikuyu country
I had been living and trading in the Kikuyu country for something like two and a half years now, and during the whole of that time had had no white visitors in the country, when one day the news was brought in that some white men had come into my neighbourhood. News of an event of this sort of course spreads very quickly, and the natives reported to me that at Mberri, about thirty miles to the east of my headquarters, two white men were camping with a lot of troops, and had commenced to build a fort. When I had made a few inquiries, I found that they were Government officials, who had come out to take over the country, and when I was satisfied of this, as soon as I could spare the time, I called all the
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chiefs together and told them that these two white men were evidently officers of the Government and had come to take the country over, and that as it had hitherto fallen to my lot to settle quarrels and disputes and generally manage the affairs of the whole country, so now, I explained, these new-comers had been sent for that purpose and to take my place. I gave the chiefs some days’ notice to be ready to go up with me, and said that I would take them up and introduce them to the officials.
When the time came to start for Mberri all the chiefs did not turn up, but I found that a good number of the thirty-six who at that time looked to me as their head were ready to accompany me. Each chief brought some of his followers with him, and we started off with about one thousand men, and, as it was too far for a day’s march, I camped after travelling about three-parts of the way to the fort. Resuming our journey the next morning, we had nearly covered the remaining portion of the distance, when it suddenly struck me that if such a large body of armed natives were seen approaching the fort without any notice of their coming having been received, they might easily be mistaken for a hostile force coming to attack the new station, so I called a halt about two or three miles from the fort, and, leaving the natives behind, went on ahead to report their arrival.
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On reaching Mberri I met one of the officers in charge of the fort, a Mr. Hall, who turned out to be a man I knew very well, having met him previously at Fort Smith, when he was in charge of that station; while Captain Longfield, who was with him, was also known to me through my having been in communication with him on several occasions respecting certain happenings in the Kikuyu country. The two officials received me in a friendly way and invited me to have some breakfast with them. Having reported to them that I had brought in a number of friendly chiefs to introduce to them, and explained my mission, I sent a man back to my people to tell them to come on in, and was still at breakfast when I heard a lot of shouting and talking, and went out to see what was the matter. On asking what the fuss was about, I was told that my askaris were being placed under arrest, and when I inquired what they had been doing, was told that they had no right to be in uniform. As a matter of fact they were not wearing a Government uniform, but as they were all dressed alike in khaki, this was made a pretext for a display of officiousness on the part of the officials, and the officer proceeded to cut some buttons off their tunics, and the rank badges off the arms of the sergeant and corporal, which, as I alone was responsible for their dress, was a needlessly insulting piece of red tape. I had previously
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ordered my men to disarm, and they submitted very quietly to the insulting disfigurement of their clothes. My greatest crime of all in the eyes of these officials, however, was the fact that I was flying the union Jack, which my men carried with them, as they were accustomed to do on all their expeditions. I mildly put the question to the officer as to whether he expected me to fly the Russian flag, or any other except that of my own country, but it seemed that, to the official mind, it was a most serious offence for an Englishman to display the flag under which he had been born and for which he had fought, unless he held some position in the official oligarchy which ruled, or was in the habit of thinking it ruled, the country.
In the meantime a fearful row was going on amongst my people and the other Kikuyu who lived near Mberri, who had joined them. Mr. Hall and Captain Longfield were in a terrible state of panic. They asked me why I had brought all those men there, saying that there was bound to be a fight, and no end of trouble. I told them that there would be no trouble with my men, as I could manage them all right. They asked me to disarm them, and I agreed to do so, provided that they would be responsible for their weapons, and on their undertaking to do so, I explained to the chiefs that it was the white men’s wish that they should disarm. This they
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very reluctantly consented to do, and gave up their weapons on my assuring them that they would be restored to them.
When my men were all disarmed, and their weapons had been safely stowed in a tent, under the care of a sentry, the official announced that I was to consider myself a prisoner as well. To this I merely replied, “All right,” feeling that if I were to express the feelings of utter contempt I possessed at that moment for these two gallant specimens of British officialdom, it would be the worse for my people and would only give an excuse for ill-treatment. I could see too much unpleasantness ahead for them as it was, if these two gentlemen were fairly representative of the class to whom the future administration of the country was to be entrusted, if I acted with precipitation and gave way to my natural feelings against the mean trick that had been played on me. I was told that I should be allowed to retain my cook and personal servants, and that no restraint would be put upon my movements, provided that I would give my word of honour not to attempt to clear out. As my real offence was that I had brought into a state of order a country which, previous to my coming, had such a reputation that no official would set foot across the border if he could help it, I had no cause to fear the results of an investigation into my conduct, and I made up my mind to await
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calmly the termination of this comedy. Besides, I thought that my personal influence might very likely be needed to prevent some “regrettable occurrence.” Both the officials were in such a state of unreasoning fear of the natives that it was more than likely that they would be guilty of some piece of foolishness which might set the whole country in a blaze. So I retired to my tent and amused myself for a great part of the day with a gramophone which I had brought with me. Of course, my men could not understand what had happened, and, fortunately, none of them knew that I was under arrest.
In the meantime my men were being questioned as to what had happened in the Kikuyu country during the time that I had been there, and the following day an askari came to my tent and presented me with a lengthy document, written on blue paper, which proved to be a summons to appear that day before the officers in charge of the fort. The summons read something after the following style: “I, Francis George Hall, charge you, John Boyes, that during your residence in the Kenia district you waged war, set shauris, personated Government, went on six punitive expeditions, and committed dacoity.” I must confess that I read over this formidable list of charges with some amusement, though I was well aware that any one of them, if proved, meant capital punishment. There was
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one item on the list that I could not make out, and I took the first opportunity of inquiring the meaning of the word “dacoity,” which was a term I had never heard used in the country before. I remembered reading a book called “The Last of the Dacoits,” and it struck me that either the title of the book was wrong, or that the official, in his anxiety to fulfil his instructions to pile up as heavy a list of crimes against me as possible, had allowed his imagination to run away with him. It was explained to me that “Dacoit” was an Indian term, meaning a native outlaw.
At the time appointed I presented myself at the “court-house,” which was a primitively-constructed mud-hut, furnished with two chairs and a table, and as the two former were occupied by Mr. Hall and Captain Longfield, there was nothing left for me but to make myself as comfortable as possible on the corner of the table, which I did, much to the scandal of those two important officials. The charge having been read over to me, I was cautioned in the same manner that an English bobby cautions a prisoner, that anything I might say, &c., and then I was asked what I had to say. I told them that I certainly had nothing to say to them one way or the other, and would reserve my defence, and the proceedings—which were of a purely formal character—were then over and I returned to my tent.
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The next four days were spent in collecting evidence against me, and as nobody could be persuaded to go to my headquarters to collect evidence against me on the spot, Captain Longfield himself finally went, taking with him the whole of his troops, while during his absence Mr. Hall gathered all the information he could from the chiefs and other natives at Mberri.
When they had, as they thought, satisfactorily arranged for sufficient evidence to secure my conviction, the Kikuyu who had come in with me had their arms restored to them, and I and my personal bodyguard, together with about two hundred native witnesses, were sent down to Nairobi under charge of an escort of about ten native soldiers, commanded by a black sergeant! The situation was ludicrously Gilbertian. Here was I, a (so-called) dangerous outlaw, being sent down to be tried for my life on a series of awful indictments, through a country in which I had only to lift a finger to call an army of savage warriors to my assistance. I was accompanied by a personal following twenty times as numerous as the guard of ten natives who kept me prisoner, and who trembled every time they passed a native village lest the inhabitants should rush out and wipe them out of existence; while on the first day out the humour of the situation was considerably increased by the sergeant in
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charge of the escort handing me the large blue envelope containing the statement of the evidence against me, with a request that I would take charge of it for him, as he was afraid he might lose it! I must say that I thoroughly appreciated the humour of the whole affair. I was the only mounted man in the whole outfit, still having my mule, and it struck me as distinctly amusing that I should be practically taking myself down to Nairobi, to be tried for my life, with the whole of the evidence under my arm!
During the journey, which, though only sixty miles in a straight line, took us five days, as we had to pick a path—there being then no road—and to avoid several swamps, some of the soldiers tried to make my men carry their loads; but I thought that this was going a little too far, and would not allow anything of the sort. We saw plenty of game along the road, and also some lions, but as I was, of course, without my rifle, I could not do any shooting.
When we arrived at Nairobi I presented myself at the Government headquarters, which were then in a little tin shanty, now used by some Indian coolies as a wash-house, while the remainder of the party sat down outside whilst I went in to see the official. The Goanese clerk who inquired my business told me that the Sub-Commissioner was very busy just then and I could not see him. It was quite remarkable how very busy
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these officials always were when any one, not of the official or missionary class, wanted to see them. I had always experienced the same difficulty in getting an interview, and no doubt the clerk thought that I had come to make one of my usual complaints. On this occasion I did not happen to be in a hurry, so telling the clerk that I would call back in about an hour’s time, I went for a stroll round the town, and took the opportunity of having a look at Nairobi. On my return I was received by the Sub-Commissioner, who asked me what I wanted, so I handed him the packet containing the statement of evidence, and when he had looked through it he said that he would make arrangements at once to have me sent down to Mombasa.
Things were done in a different way here, and I quickly realized the change when I got outside the office and found myself surrounded by a guard of six Indian soldiers with fixed bayonets.
That same day I was taken by the afternoon train to Mombasa, under charge of the escort of Indian soldiers, with a white officer in command, and on arriving there I was handed over to another white official. After some considerable delay, the papers apparently not being in order in some respect, I was duly admitted to the Mombasa jail, which was the old Portuguese fort—a massive building, whose
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frowning walls rise sheer above the cliff commanding the entrance to Mombasa. Many a time, in days gone by, has the tide of battle rolled around these grim walls, the many sanguinary conflicts in which it has figured having earned for Mombasa the title of the “Isle of War.” Looked at from the outside, the fort is a gloomy-looking place, with its huge entrance gates guarded by sentries; but its extent is best judged from the inside, and I found that there was plenty of room within its massive walls; while the apartment allotted to my use proved to be much more comfortable than I had expected—being, in fact, quite on a par with, if it did not surpass, the accommodation which the only hotel in Mombasa at that time could provide. I found that I was perfectly free to roam about the fort at will, though, of course, I was not allowed to pass outside the gates.
I had been incarcerated in the fort for some weeks before any of my friends got to know of my arrest, and then one of them, Mr. Claude Smith, also a trader and hunter, like myself, hearing of my position, came down to Mombasa to see me. After having paid me a visit, he got the only lawyer in the country, who was a Parsee, to conduct my defence; while a few days later these two managed to secure my release, on a bail of 10,000 rupees, and I left the fort and went up to Nairobi.
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The bare statement that Claude Smith came down to Mombasa to see me, and secured my release on 10,000 rupees bail, will probably not convey the idea to the general reader that he did anything calling for special notice. But, when the facts of the case are taken into consideration, it will be seen that the comradeship which existed among us early pioneers in that wild, official-ridden territory, was of a kind which does not usually flourish among the stay-at-home, arm-chair critics who, from the comfort of the club fireside or the smug atmosphere of the Exeter Hall platform, condemn the traders and settlers as irredeemable blackguards or, as one complacent official described them to a gathering of uneducated natives, as washenzi Uliya, the translation of which is “the savages of Europe.” In the first place, although I had no claim on him whatever, he came down some four hundred miles from Naivasha, where he was hunting, leaving his expedition for the purpose, and found the 10,000 rupees bail—which had to be actually deposited—from his own pocket, and remained with me until the case was dismissed—thus sacrificing many weeks of valuable time in my interests. Further than all this, he incurred the bitter enmity of the official who had instigated the whole business against me, and who never rested until he had fabricated a similar charge against my friend, needless to
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say with the result of triumphal acquittal for both of us.
When my trial came on, I found that all the charges against me, except the one of dacoity, had been withdrawn; which fact only served to confirm the information I had received—were any confirmation needed—as to the origin of, and reason for, the whole conspiracy against me. The trial was by judge and jury, and after hearing the evidence against me the court acquitted me, and I left the court-house, as the judge said, without a stain on my character—the judge even going so far as to say that he did not understand why the case had been brought at all, and, finally, apologising to me for the waste of my valuable time!
As to why the case had been brought I could have given the judge a good deal of information which would have enlightened him considerably, but as I had come so triumphantly out of the matter, I did not see that I had anything to gain by stirring up the mud. At that time there were not more than a dozen independent white men in the country; all the rest were Government officials, missionaries, or men engaged in the construction of the Uganda Railway, and, for some reason or other, the governing class were always bitterly hostile to the commercial and hunting element, and took every occasion of impressing upon us that we were not wanted in
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the country. Further than this, the class of men holding the Government appointments at that time were by no means representative of the best elements even of officialdom; being, in many cases, unsuccessful traders with a little backstairs influence, or the least useful class of Army officer, with absolutely no experience of the people or the country and no administrative training.[15] This state of affairs is by no means peculiar to British East Africa, but has been experienced in most of our other African Crown Colonies, and, indeed, prevailed in many of them up to quite recently, and may do so yet for all I know. Fortunately, so far as British East Africa is concerned, there are now good prospects of the carrying out of a saner and more intelligent policy under the guidance of the new Governor, Sir Percy Girouard. If the colony is ever to become anything more than a happy hunting ground for official inefficients, every assistance must be given to those who are willing to invest their money in the country, and petty officialism must be put in its proper place in the machinery of government.
15. It must be remembered that the administration of the country was just starting. The Government had to put up with what officials they could get.
In my case there were many mixed motives underlying the conspiracy to get me ousted from the Kikuyu country, and if possible from the
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dependency, but it is perhaps better that I should be silent about all this. One reason, perhaps, for desiring my removal was the apprehension that existed out there that the authorities at home might think that after all the man who single-handed had reduced to peace and order a country into which no white man had ever successfully entered before, might not be a bad one to entrust with its future administration in the interests of the Empire. Of course, such an intrusion into the sacred official class by a common trader, who actually understood the natives—as far as a white man may—and was able to exercise a kindly influence over them, was to be prevented at all hazards, even at the cost of the said trader’s life if need be.
For my part, although no man likes to give up practically supreme power, even among savages, I had always recognized that the day must come—and had been at some trouble to prepare the natives for it—when the administration of the country would be duly taken over by the official bureaucracy, and my only aim was to assist the officials as far as possible when that day came, so that the change might be brought about with as little disturbance to the existing state of order as possible. Unfortunately, the petty spite and official arrogance and inefficiency of certain individuals defeated my object, and
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within a comparatively short period I was grieved to find that my old friend and blood brother, Wagombi, irritated at the tactless way in which he was treated by the new officials, was carrying fire and sword through the whole country, and raiding almost up to the walls of the boma where the new Administrator lay trembling and afraid to venture a quarter of a mile outside his own camp.
However, as I have already said, all those who have the true interests of British East Africa at heart are hoping for a better state of things under the experienced and enlightened administration of Sir Percy Girouard.
After the fiasco of my trial, I returned to Karuri’s, and continued my food-buying, taking the supplies into Naivasha as before. I still experienced the same trouble with the Kalyera natives on the way down with the food for the Government stations, and finally the matter was reported to the Governor, Sir Charles Eliot, who resided at Zanzibar, which was then the headquarters of the Government. As a result of these representations, an expedition was sent out under Captain Wake, of the East African Rifles, with Mr. McLellan as civil officer, and I was asked to accompany them as guide and intelligence officer. I was only too pleased to have this opportunity of proving to the Government my readiness to help, and I willingly agreed to go with the expedition.
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