Читать книгу Freeland: A Social Anticipation - Theodor Hertzka - Страница 13

Here, then, lay before us the goal of our wanderings, and powerful emotion seized us all as we, though only at a great distance, for the first time looked upon our future home. The Kenia peak, however, remained wrapped in clouds during the two days of our stay on the eastern outskirts of the Kikuyu forest. We made our halt in a charming grove of gigantic bread-fruit trees, where the Wa-Kikuyu placed their huts gratuitously at our disposal. The place is called Semba, and had been selected as the meeting-place of the great shauri. We found a great number of natives already assembled there; and on the next day everything was arranged and confirmed between us to our mutual satisfaction. Thus we were able to start on our return march on the 16th of June. We did not go over the Ngongo, but followed a tributary of the Amboni to its source--more than 7,000 feet above the sea--and then dropped abruptly down from the edge of the Kikuyu tableland and went direct to the Naivasha, which we reached on the evening of the 19th. We were somewhat exhausted, but otherwise in good condition and in excellent spirits. We had discovered that we should be able to reach the Kenia a good week earlier than would have been possible by the originally chosen route through Lykipia.

The Naivasha is a beautiful lake in the midst of picturesque ranges of hills, the highest points of which reach 6,500 feet. The lake has a superficies of about thirty square miles, and its characteristic feature is a fabulous wealth in feathered game of all kinds. Here Johnston had made all the necessary preparations for the great feast of peace and joy which we purposed to give the Masai. The news that they had henceforth to reckon the Wa-Kikuyu also among our friends was received by the el-moran with mixed feelings; but they submitted to the arrangement without murmuring, and at the feast, in which fifty of the principal men among the Wa Kikuyu who had accompanied us took part, the new friendship between the two races was more firmly established.

The feast consisted of a two days' great carousing, at which we provided enormous quantities of flesh, baked food, fruits, and punch for not less than 6,000 guests, without reckoning women and children. The chief feature consisted of some splendid fireworks. During these two days 150 fat young bulls, 260 antelopes of various kinds, 25 giraffes, innumerable feathered game, and an enormous quantity of vegetables were consumed. The punch was brewed in 100 vessels, each holding above six gallons, and each filled on the average four times. Nevertheless, this colossal hospitality--apart from the fireworks--cost us nothing at all. The cattle were presents, and indeed were a part of the number brought to us by numerous tribes as tokens of grateful esteem; the game we had, of course, not bought, but shot; and the vegetables were here, on the borders of Kikuyu, so cheap that the price may be regarded as merely nominal. As to the punch, the chief ingredient, rum--fortunately not a home production in Masailand and Kikuyuland--our experts had made on the spot, without touching the nearly exhausted supply we had brought with us. For among our other machinery there was a still. This was unpacked, wild-growing sugar-cane was to be had in abundance, and hence we had rum in plenty. Care was taken that the process was not so watched by the natives as to be learnt by them, for we did not wish to introduce among our neighbours that curse of negroland, the rum-bottle. The hot punch which we served out to them did not contain more than one part of rum to ten of water; yet nearly three hundred gallons of this noble spirit had to be used in the improvised bowls during the two days of the feast. The jubilation, particularly during the letting-off of the fireworks, was indescribable; and when finally, after silence had been obtained by flourish of trumpets, we had it proclaimed by strong-voiced heralds that the nation of the Masai were invited by us to be our guests at the same place every year on the 19th and 20th of June, the people nearly tore us to pieces out of pure delight.

The 21st of June was devoted to rest after the fatigues of the feast, and to the arrangement of the baggage; on the 22nd the march to Kikuyu was begun. To avoid taking the sumpter beasts over the steep acclivities of the hills that skirted the Naivasha valley, we turned back towards Ngongo-a-Bagas, which we reached on the 24th. Here we decided to establish an express communication with the sea, in order that the news of our arrival at our goal, which we expected to reach in a few days, might be carried as quickly as possible to Mombasa, and thence to the committee of the International Free Society. From Mombasa to Ngongo our engineers had measured 500 miles; we had done the distance in 38 days--from May 5 to June 12--of which, however, only 27 were real marching days. We calculated that our Arab horses, if put to the strain for only one day, could easily cover more than 60 miles in the day, and that therefore the whole distance could be covered in eight stages of a day each. Therefore sixteen of our best riders, with twenty-four of the best-winded racers, were ordered back. These couriers were directed to distribute themselves in twos at distances of about sixty miles--where the roads were bad a little less, and where they were good a little more. As baggage, besides their weapons and ammunition, they were furnished with merely so much of European necessaries and of articles for barter on the way as could be easily carried by the eight supernumerary horses, which were at the same time to serve as a reserve. For the rest we could safely rely upon their being received with open arms and hospitably entertained by the natives they might meet with along the route we had taken. A similar service of couriers was established between Ngongo and the Kenia; as this latter distance was about 120 miles it was covered by two stages. Thus there was a total of ten stages, and it was anticipated that news from Kenia would reach Mombasa in ten days--an anticipation which proved to be correct.

The march through the forest-land of Kikuyu, which was entered on the 25th, was marked by no noteworthy incident. When, early on the morning of the 27th, we reached the open, we found ourselves at first in a thick fog, which was inconvenient to us Caucasians merely in so far as it hid the view from us; but our Swahili people, who had never before experienced a temperature of 53° Fahr. in connection with a damp atmosphere, had their teeth set chattering. To the northerners, and particularly to the mountaineers among us, there was something suggestive of home in the rolling masses of fog permeated with the balmy odours of the trees and shrubs. About eight A.M. there suddenly sprang up a light warm breeze from the north; the fog broke with magical rapidity, and before us lay, in the brilliant sunshine, a landscape, the overpowering grandeur of which mocks description. Behind us and on our left was the marvellous forest which we had not long since left; right in front of us was a gently sloping stretch of country in which emerald meadows alternated with dark banana-groves and small patches of waving corn. The ground was everywhere covered with brilliant flowers, whose sweet perfume was wafted towards us in rich abundance by the genial breeze. Here and there were scattered small groups of tall palms, some gigantic wide-spreading fig-trees, planes, and sycamores; and numerous herds of different kinds of wild animals gave life to the scene. Here frolicked a troop of zebras; there grazed quietly some giraffes and delicate antelopes; on the left two uncouth rhinoceroses chased each other, grunting; about 1,100 yards from us a score of elephants were making their way towards the forest; and at a greater distance still some hundreds of buffaloes were trotting towards the same goal.

This splendid country stretched out of sight towards the east and the south-east, traversed by the broad silver band of the Guaso Amboni, which, some five miles off, and perhaps at a level of above 300 feet below where we were standing, flowed towards the east, and, so far as we could see, received at least a dozen small tributaries from sources on both of the enclosing slopes. The tributaries springing from the Kikuyu forest on the southern side--on which we were--are the smaller; those from the northern side are incomparably more copious, for their source is the Kenia range. This giant among the mountains of Africa, which covers an area of nearly 800 square miles and rises to a height of nearly 20,000 feet, now--despite the 50 miles between us and that--showed itself to our intoxicated gaze as an enormous icefield with two crystalline peaks sharply projected against the dark firmament.

Even the Swahili, who are generally indifferent to the beauties of nature, broke out into deafening shouts of delight; but we whites stood in speechless rapture, silently pressed each other's hands, and not a few furtively brushed a tear from the eye. The Land of Promise lay before us, more beautiful, grander, than we had dared to dream--the cradle of a happy future for us and, if our hopes and wishes were not vain, for the latest generations of mankind.

From thence onward it was as if our feet and the feet of our beasts had wings. The pure invigorating air of this beautiful tableland, freshened by the winds from the Kenia, the pleasant road over the soft short grass, and the sumptuous and easily obtained provisions, enabled us to make our daily marches longer than we had yet done. On the evening of the 27th we crossed the eastern boundary of Kikuyu, where we had to lay in large stores of provisions, because we then entered a district where the only population consisted of a few nomadic Andorobbo. As far as we could see, the country resembled a garden, but man had not yet taken possession of this paradise. The 28th and the greater part of the 29th found us marching through flowery meadows and picturesque little woodlands, and crossing murmuring brooks and streams of considerable size; but the only living things we met with were giraffes, elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, zebras, antelopes, and ostriches, with hippopotamuses and flamingoes on the river banks. Most of these creatures were so tame that they scarcely got out of our way, and several overbold zebras accompanied us for some distance, neighing and capering as they went along. On the afternoon of the 29th we entered the thick highland forest, which stretched before us farther than we could see, and through the dense underwood of which the axe of our pioneers had to cut us a way. The ground had been gradually ascending for two days--that is, ever since we had left the Amboni--and it now became steeper; we had reached the foot of the Kenia mountain. The forest zone proved to be of comparatively small breadth, and on the morning of the 30th we emerged from it again into open undulating park-land. When we had scaled one of the heights in front of us, there lay before us, almost within reach of our hands, the Kenia in all the icy magnificence of its glacier-world.

We had reached our goal!