I parted on the best of terms with Karkerrie, and set out for Wagombi’s country. The country we were now passing through was much more sparsely inhabited, and we camped the first night at the headwaters of the Tana River, where, although no natives came to see me, I took the usual precautions for guarding the camp. Very shortly afterwards these precautions were amply justified, and I was made to realize that I was by no means in an entirely friendly country yet. Some of my men, going down without a guard to fetch water, were attacked by natives, and three of them speared to death. They had evidently been ambushed while going through a shamba by some natives who had immediately cleared off, and, though I made inquiries and found traces of a good many feet in the shamba, the murderers themselves were nowhere visible. We buried the three bodies that afternoon, and had no more disturbance during the night. The next morning we had struck camp for the final stage of the march to Wagombi’s when we saw a lot of natives doing a war-dance and shouting. Going to inquire what it was all about, I found that they had dug up the bodies of the three men we had buried the previous day, and were having a war-dance over them; so, turning away from such a gruesome spectacle, we resumed our march.
I had, of course, already sent messages on to Wagombi, to let him know that I was coming, and the news had spread among his own people that I was on the way to pay him a visit. Wagombi himself had come out a considerable distance to meet me, about ten miles from his own village. I found him a fine, tall fellow, in his bearing and appearance every inch a chief, and in his speech a good deal more brisk than any other Kikuyu I had met. He greeted me very heartily, shaking hands in the usual Kikuyu fashion—first spitting in the palm—and had quite a lot to say about himself and the country. He had with him quite a young lad, about ten years old, whom he introduced as his son and successor, and who seemed a very bright little fellow, of whom the chief appeared to be very proud. This lad is at the present time the chief of that district.
Wagombi brought no other followers with him but two or three old men. He himself wore a robe of monkey-skins, and was without any head-dress, while he carried a huge spear. As we proceeded towards the village he told me that he had heard a lot about me, and was very pleased to meet me. He said that he knew he had a very bad reputation for his treatment of people passing through his country, but that he was anxious to make friends with me, and was pleased that I had not brought any Arabs or Swahili with me, as he did not want any people of that sort in his country, and would kill the lot of them. Being some distance ahead of my party, and noticing that we were meeting large numbers of warriors as we went along the road, I sent word back to my people to keep a sharp look out, and told the chief about my men having been murdered at the last camp. He said that it had been done by his people all right, but that they had been acting absolutely on their own; in fact, he had sent messengers along our road to tell them not to interfere with us in any way, so that what had happened had been entirely against his wishes, and he meant to find out who had done it and punish them.