Jamah Mahomet, who was in command of the Somali safari, started off that day. He had with him Ismail Robli as second in command. A smaller safari, under Noor Adam, had started a week previously. Both these safaris intended visiting the same districts as ourselves. We were fated to hear a great deal more of them before the end of our trip. In the evening I received a private note from one of the Government officers, informing me that we were likely to have a certain amount of trouble in getting across the river Thika-Thika without fighting, as the natives of that district were very turbulent, and advising us to go another way. My informant cited the case of Messrs. Finlay and Gibbons by way of a cheerful moral. Finlay and Gibbons were two Englishmen who had been trading somewhere to the north of the Tana River. They had forty men or so, and were trading for ivory with the A’kikuyu, when they were suddenly and treacherously attacked and driven into their “boma” (thorn stockade), and there besieged by quite six thousand natives. From what I saw later, I can quite believe that their numbers were by no means exaggerated. During a night attack, Finlay was speared through the hand and again in the back, the wound in the back, however, not proving dangerous. They managed to get a message through to Nairobi, and some Nubian troops were sent to their relief, which task they successfully accomplished, though only with the greatest difficulty. It was not till six weeks after he received the wound that Finlay was able to obtain medical assistance, and by that time the tendons of his hand had united wrongly, so that it was rendered permanently useless. This was a nice enlivening story, calculated to encourage men who were setting out for the same districts. The following day I received a telegram from George to say that he had arrived from Uganda at the Kedong Camp, at the foot of the Kikuyu Escarpment, so I went up by rail to meet him. He looked very thin and worn after his severe attack of fever. We returned to Nairobi the same evening, and proceeded to our camp. El Hakim, who was away when we arrived, turned up an hour later, and completed our party. He had been to Kriger’s Farm about seven miles out. Messrs. Kriger and Knapp were two American missionaries who had established a mission station that distance out of Nairobi, towards Doenyo Sabuk, or Chianjaw, as it is called by the Wa’kamba. El Hakim, being anxious to get our men away from the pernicious influence of the native bazaar, arranged that he would go on to Kriger’s early on the following morning, and that George and I should follow later in the day with the safari, and camp for the night near Kriger’s place. Accordingly he started early in the forenoon on the following day.