When the time came to start for Mberri all the chiefs did not turn up, but I found that a good number of the thirty-six who at that time looked to me as their head were ready to accompany me. Each chief brought some of his followers with him, and we started off with about one thousand men, and, as it was too far for a day’s march, I camped after travelling about three-parts of the way to the fort. Resuming our journey the next morning, we had nearly covered the remaining portion of the distance, when it suddenly struck me that if such a large body of armed natives were seen approaching the fort without any notice of their coming having been received, they might easily be mistaken for a hostile force coming to attack the new station, so I called a halt about two or three miles from the fort, and, leaving the natives behind, went on ahead to report their arrival.
On reaching Mberri I met one of the officers in charge of the fort, a Mr. Hall, who turned out to be a man I knew very well, having met him previously at Fort Smith, when he was in charge of that station; while Captain Longfield, who was with him, was also known to me through my having been in communication with him on several occasions respecting certain happenings in the Kikuyu country. The two officials received me in a friendly way and invited me to have some breakfast with them. Having reported to them that I had brought in a number of friendly chiefs to introduce to them, and explained my mission, I sent a man back to my people to tell them to come on in, and was still at breakfast when I heard a lot of shouting and talking, and went out to see what was the matter. On asking what the fuss was about, I was told that my askaris were being placed under arrest, and when I inquired what they had been doing, was told that they had no right to be in uniform. As a matter of fact they were not wearing a Government uniform, but as they were all dressed alike in khaki, this was made a pretext for a display of officiousness on the part of the officials, and the officer proceeded to cut some buttons off their tunics, and the rank badges off the arms of the sergeant and corporal, which, as I alone was responsible for their dress, was a needlessly insulting piece of red tape. I had previously ordered my men to disarm, and they submitted very quietly to the insulting disfigurement of their clothes. My greatest crime of all in the eyes of these officials, however, was the fact that I was flying the Union Jack, which my men carried with them, as they were accustomed to do on all their expeditions. I mildly put the question to the officer as to whether he expected me to fly the Russian flag, or any other except that of my own country, but it seemed that, to the official mind, it was a most serious offence for an Englishman to display the flag under which he had been born and for which he had fought, unless he held some position in the official oligarchy which ruled, or was in the habit of thinking it ruled, the country.