Once upon a time in Kenya

 

I HAVE always been a fan of the late Elspeth Huxley from the very first time I read the Flame Trees of Thika. And thanks to the Macmillian Library, I read many of her other books. I first went to the library as a child and I was told that Indians were not allowed there. However, just before I chucked a U-turn, someone (a lady) tapped me on the shoulder and told me it was OK but if I came back again I would have to bring a letter from my parents. I said I would, even though my parents could not read or write. Anyway, I had lots of friends who were much older than me and who could write such a letter. I first became enamoured with the written word when I was a child at St Teresa’s Boys’ School and for the rest of my time in Kenya, the Macmillan would satisfy my almost daily appetite for reading. Later when I became a journalist, the Macmillan was also handy in helping me research material for my stories for the Nation.

Here are some yarns from Elspeth Huxley’s memorable Pioneers of Kenya (a collection of stories written by the pioneers themselves):

I am sure most of you have seen this letter which has done the rounds over the decades since it was written in 1905.

The senior officer in Nairobi

To the Traffic Manager,

Uganda Railway, Nairobi

Most Honoured and Respected Sir,

I have the honour to humbly and urgently require Honour’s permission to relieve me of my onerous duties at Londiani so as to enable me to visit the land of my nativity, to wit, India, forsooth.

This is in order that I may take unto wife a damsel of many charms who has long been cherished in the heartbeats of my soul. Said beauteous damsel has long been the goal of my manly breast and now am fearful of other miscreants deposing me from her lofty affections. Delay in consummation may be the ruination most damnable to romance of both damsel and your humble servant.

Therefore, I pray your Honour, allow me to hasten to India and contract marriage forthwith with said beauteous damsel. This being done happily I will return to Londiani to resume my fruitful official duties and perform also my maternal matrimonial functions. It is dead loneliness without this charmer to solace my empty heart.

If you honour will so far rejoice my soul to this extent and also goes equally without saying that said wife-to-be, I shall pray forever as in duty bound for your Honour’s life-long prosperity, everlasting happiness, promotion of the most startling rapidity and withal the fatherhood of many Godlike children to gambol playfully about your Honour’s paternal knees to heart’s content.

If, however, for reasons of State or other extreme urgency, the Presence cannot suitably comply with terms of this humble petition,  then I pray most excellent Superiority to grant me this benign favour for Jesus Christ’s sake, a gentleman whom your Honour very much resembles.

I have the honour to be, Sir, your Honour’s most humble and dutiful , terribly love-sick mortal withal.

(Signed)

B.A. (failed by God’s misfortune) Bombay,

Bombay University, and now Station Master, Londiani.

(The request was granted)

 

Milestones 1896

By Edward Rodwell (founded the Sunday Post, I think)

A line of chairs on which the women sat; behind them, the men stood straight as sticks in starched white uniforms, with swords, and big white military topees. Mr George Whitehouse, chief engineer of the railway, handsome, thirtyish and frustrated, addressed the gathering. It was an historic day, he said, because the railway had been a long time coming. It would still take a long time to complete but when it was done East Africa would be changed. The old order would be gone forever. Whitehouse than signalled for the first rail to be laid.

Mombasa in 1896 was not much of a place. Ndia Kuu (?) and Vasco da Gama Street comprised the shopping centre. There was no piped water, no sewers, no garbage collection, but plenty of flies and rats, and a cemetery with the bones of the late lamented protruding from the shallow earth. Road surfaces were unmade. Used as drains for centuries past, they stan. Most of the island was covered by jungle, infested with puff adders, and leopards roamed about the town at night.

As to the population, the jail contained 150: there were 169 Goans and 15,000 Africans, mainly Swahili; 6000 Asians, 500 Baluchis, 600 Arabs and 2667 slaves. Add to this the ladies and gentlemen who had watched the laying of the first rail. There were 24 Protectorate officials and their families, 39 railway employees and their families, 20 missionaries, 10 English businessmen, 2 Germans, 4 Greek contractors and 2 hotelkeepers of the same nationality and 2 Romanian hotelkeepers and 4 idlers.

There was also the new Mombasa Club and Sports Club just opened, for which Sheikh Ali Bin Salim had given land. At the former, a bell rang at 7 pm to signify that all women were to leave the premises. But women were allowed in for dinner on special occasions. Judge Hamilton once asked officials and their wives to dinner. The guests sat around a huge table. The judge would not divulge the ingredients of the piece de resistance, which was to be the surprise. It was borne into the dining room on a great covered dish and placed in the centre of the board. Everyone was agog. The host lifted the cover and immediately a hundred long-legged black crabs scampered all over the table. Well, he was quite right. It was a surprise. (1907)

 

Vasco da Gama Road Mombasa

ONE day Terry Fitzgerald of Solai stumbled on a large python and found himself wrapped round and round in its coils. There was no one he could call for help. He managed to get hold of the reptile’s jaw and tried to break its neck. It seemed a very long time indeed, while he felt himself more tightly squeezed and growing weaker, before he felt its backbone snap and the blessed relief as the coils relaxed. His hand was badly lacerated by the snake’s teeth and he was bruised all over but he escaped with his life.

 

Dr Roger Bowles: Gendin Farm was plagued by marauding baboons. I read an article in a South African paper on how to discourage them. I trapped a large dog baboon, painted him pillar-box red, tied a cowbell round his neck and released him. Then I caught a bitch baboon and painted her green and also released her. Early next morning there were two large baboons, red and green, sitting together on a prominent rocky outcrop. Behind them was a large pack of baboons. I fired a shot over the heads of the two harlequins. Off they went, the bell tinkling, followed by the rest of the back. That rid the district of the baboons.