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. 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 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 When my trial came on, I found that all the charges against me, except the one of dacoity, had been withdrawn; which fact only served to confirm the information I had received—were any confirmation needed—as to the origin of, and reason for, the whole conspiracy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!