“Outside the Fort itself the state of affairs was not so pleasant to contemplate. We were surrounded day and night by a complete ring of hostile Wa-Kikuyu, hidden in the long grass and bushes, and for any one to wander alone for more than two hundred yards from the stockade was almost certain death. On the morning of our arrival, a porter of Martin’s caravan, who had strayed down to the long grass at the foot of the little hill on which the station is built, was speared through the back and killed within 250 paces of our tents. A short time before eight soldiers in the Company’s service who were foraging for food—probably in an illicit manner—were all massacred in a neighbouring village; and a day or two before our arrival the natives had even had the temerity to try and set fire to the fort itself at night. “It will, however, be a matter of time and difficulty, requiring great tact, patience, and firmness, to induce these Wa-Kikuyu to have confidence in Europeans, and to discontinue their practice of spearing or otherwise murdering any defenceless Swahili porter whom they may find straying away by himself. “Long before I went to their country myself I remember being told by an African traveller of great renown that the only way in which to deal with the Kikuyu people, whether singly or in masses, was to ‘shoot at sight.’” The Martin mentioned by Sir Gerald Portal above was one of the pioneers of British East Africa. He was a Maltese sailor, who came to this country with Joseph Thompson, and was the first white man to venture among the Masai. He now manages the Mabira forest rubber estate. Another traveller, Mr. G. F. Scott Elliott, speaking of the Kikuyu in his book, “A Naturalist in Mid Africa,” says: “They are only too anxious to spear a lagging porter.”[4] He also describes the murder by these people of forty-nine out of fifty men composing an Arab or Swahili trading caravan. ----- Footnote 4: For further reference to the Kikuyu tribe see Professor Gregory’s excellent book “The Great Rift Valley,” 1896. ----- Later on I was destined to be the first white man to live amongst this pleasant people, enter into their daily life, and bring them into something like close touch with European civilization. We were warned to be very careful when we reached the Kikuyu country, and to keep a good guard, as they had a very bad name, being very treacherous and not to be trusted in any way; but, keeping a sharp look-out, we passed the boundary without any interference from them. We kept to the caravan road, which passed along the outskirts of the country, as we were told that every caravan going through the country had had trouble with the natives, having had porters killed and goods stolen.