[Illustration: MY BEARERS LOST NO OPPORTUNITY OF INDULGING IN THE ENJOYMENT OF A BATH.]
The camp was pitched beside a parched-looking ’msuaki tree on the banks of a brook which at this time of the year was a turbid torrent pouring itself down towards the lake. Some time before, bush and grass fires had raged in the neighbourhood and destroyed the old grass, and here, it would seem, a heavy rainfall had conjured forth for us a new carpet of grass that was fresh and luxuriant. The remarkable luxuriance of the grass lands in the district had already been specially noticed, and compared to the richest pastures of the Swiss Alps, by the discoverer of, and first traveller in, this region, Dr. G. A. Fischer, an explorer who, alas! so soon fell a victim to the climate.
Fischer--in 1883--was the first to visit the neighbouring Lake Naiwasha. How the situation has changed since then! At that time, and thus only twelve years before I first camped there, the warlike Masai still held these wide uplands as absolute masters.
[Illustration: A MASAI _ol’ moruan_ (_i.e._ OLD MAN) ANSWERING MY QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ELELESCHO PLANT.]
Oscar Baumann, an explorer who did good service, was one of the first to traverse their inhospitable dominions. It was some years after Fischer’s journey that Baumann made his way into the region of the Nile sources, during his famous expedition to legend-haunted Ruanda (now better known to us through Dr. Richard Kandt’s researches). I made his acquaintance at the Austrian Consulate at Zanzibar. He, also, was snatched away in his early years by the Sphinx of Africa, the treacherous climate.
MASAI _ol’ morani_ AND TWO YOUNGER MASAI IN MY CAMP. THE TYPICAL COSTUME OF THE WARRIOR DIFFERS CONSIDERABLY FROM THAT SHOWN IN THE ILLUSTRATION AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER, WHICH REPRESENTS A MASAI ALREADY INFLUENCED BY CIVILISATION.]
His journey, only a few years before my stay here, cost his numerous and strongly armed caravan hard fighting with the natives. And now I am camping here with a few men in an unfortified camp!
Fischer was quite convinced that he could not venture upon his exploring journey without the support of the Mohammedan trading caravans, but he had finally to start alone with 230 bearers. Yet, notwithstanding all difficulties, he successfully accomplished his task. But how different from those of to-day were the circumstances under which a journey was made into unknown Masailand at that time! The Masai warrior was then still sovereign master in his own land; he was still “Ol open l en gob” (“Lord of the land”) in the full sense of the word. And all the chivalrous poetry that has been so pathetically brought home to us by the fate of the North American Indians, was also not alien to his warlike character. Then came the moment when he had to face the firearms of the Europeans. His fate was sealed, like that of the lion and the leopard.