A White King in East Africa: The Remarkable Adventures of John Boyes, Trader and Soldier of Fortune, Who Became King of the Savage Wa-KikuyuBoyes, John
History
A White King in East Africa: The Remarkable Adventures of John Boyes, Trader and Soldier of Fortune, Who Became King of the Savage Wa-Kikuyu
Boyes, John
Africa, East; Kikuyu (African people)
got safely across, but a good many were drowned on the way. At least
fifty had been killed, and many wounded, and these I gave orders were
not to be killed, but brought in as prisoners, of whom, when all were
collected, we had a very large number, so that the victory was
altogether complete, while my force had suffered only very slight loss.
The punishment we had administered was so severe that the country was
never again raided by these people during the time I was with the
Kikuyu.
This victory having ensured the people security from any further
raids—for a time, at any rate—I had now the opportunity for which I had
been looking, of taking the food I had collected into the British
settlement. I had bought a lot of flour, which I took into the
Government station at Naivasha, and very pleased they were to get it, as
I found that they were practically starving for want of food. Not only
was this the case at Naivasha, but they were no better off at the
Ravine; and so thankful were the Government to get these supplies that
they made a contract with me to keep them provisioned, and I heard no
more about my going into the Kikuyu country without permission!
It was on this visit to Naivasha that I was able to renew my
acquaintance with two most interesting people, whom I had met on some of
my journeys with food for the troops in Uganda. They were Mr. and Mrs.
Walsh, who, at the time I first met them, were engaged, like myself, in
taking up food in donkey-wagons for the troops. They had, I found,
established the first store in Naivasha. This was what I had wished to
do some time previously, but had been forbidden by the official in
charge—who, as I now have reason to believe, far exceeded his legal
powers in doing so; but I was only a settler, and he was one of the
officials who had his knife into me.
This couple had come to East Africa from Mashonaland, where Mrs. Walsh
had been the first white woman to enter the country, and had started by
taking up the transport business, in which they had both had
considerable experience, and in which Mrs. Walsh took a man’s share of
the work, being the only white woman who ever ran transport in British
East Africa. In spite of their many successful ventures, they are not
numbered among the wealthy, their open-handed hospitality and careless,
happy-go-lucky Irish temperament being against them in the race to
accumulate riches; but there is hardly any one who has been in British
East Africa who does not know them, and few who have not, at one time or
another, shared their generous hospitality, which was as freely extended
to the trader or settler temporarily down on his luck as to the
Government official or missionary travelling in luxury.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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