Part 1 (2/2)
”Failed B.A.?” said John, puzzled. He had met B.A.'s of several universities, and even junior masters who called themselves Inter. B.A.
Lond. (honours); but a failed B.A. was a new species.
”Yes, sir; the honourable examiners formed a less elevated estimate of my intellectual attainments than was reasonably antic.i.p.ated, and when the list was published, lo! my name was conspicuous by its absence. But that is a bagatelle. The honorific distinction--what is it but the guinea stamp? It is work, sir, that enn.o.bles. I have acc.u.mulated a priceless store of knowledge; I am all there, I a.s.sure you.”
John thought it only polite to murmur an a.s.sent to this, but he felt himself ill equipped to sustain a conversation on the dizzy heights to which Said Mohammed appeared inclined to ascend, and turning once more to the window, he viewed in silence the ever-changing scenery. The luxuriant vegetation of the coastal region had given place to a vast plateau covered with a dense scrub of umbrella-shaped acacias, with patches of dry gra.s.s, and here and there a ma.s.sive baobab rearing its antic form from out the undergrowth. He was interested in the little stations, with their trim flower-beds and home-like appointments, at which the train stopped at intervals of several miles; and gave but perfunctory answers to the Bengali, who kept up, with every appearance of pleasure, a continual flow of talk, informing him that this tree was an aristolochia and that an aloe, and calling his attention at one spot to a herd of sable antelopes which were startled by the train as they drank at a stream, and dashed off into the jungle. ”Their scientific name, sir, is _Hippotragus niger_,” said Said Mohammed, and Mr. Halliday waking at this point, the Bengali favoured him with a smile, and said, ”A verree fine country, sir; good-morning.”
They took their lunch at Mackinnon Road station, at the foot of the Taru hills. Refreshed by his sleep and the meal, Mr. Halliday began to take more interest in things in general, and John having introduced Said Mohammed (mentioning impressively that he was a failed B.A. of Calcutta University), a three-cornered conversation was begun, in which the Bengali fluently expounded his views on many subjects.
”Yes, sir,” said he, when the question of the treatment of native races cropped up, ”that is a subject to which I have devoted considerable ac.u.men. Is it just, I ask you, is it worthy of this immense and glorious empire on which the sun never sits, that the natives, the primordial owners of the soil, should be laid under such restrictions as are now in force? Are we Indians not subjects of the same gracious and glorious majesty, F.D., et cetera? Have we not shed our blood in defence of the Union Jack? Are we not ready to fight and conquer again and again like your jolly tars and all? And yet my countrymen, to wit, are not allowed in South Africa the full rights of citizens; and in this country, where this verree railway was built by the labour of Indians, it is becoming the rule to refuse them grants of land. Is this sauce for the gander, I ask you, gentlemen?”
”It's a very ticklish subject,” said Mr. Halliday, ”and I don't profess to understand it. I dare say those zebras yonder--look at them, John, hundreds of 'em--think it great impudence on the part of this engine to run snorting through their grounds. But the engine runs all the same.”
At Tsavo the line crossed the river Athi. John looked out eagerly for a glimpse of the lions which were said to infest this region, but to his disappointment saw none. Indeed, as the train pa.s.sed through mile after mile of uninteresting scrub, he began to feel that his first enthusiasm for the country was premature. But at Kibwezi the line enters another belt of forest, the trees looped together with festooning creepers, and filled with chattering monkeys and barking baboons; the undergrowth brilliant with colour, both of the flowers and of birds and b.u.t.terflies innumerable. Some miles farther on, at Makindu, the forest yields to rich pasture land, the undulating plain stretching on both sides of the line, broken by streams whose beds are lined with date-palms and firs.
All the vegetation was fresh and vivid through recent rains, and Mr.
Halliday, viewing the country with a stock-breeder's eye, now for the first time allowed a remark on the scenery to pa.s.s his lips. ”That's grand!” he said; and when the rumbling of the train set startled herds of antelope and gazelle, red congoni and black wildebeeste, scampering over the plain, he stood up in the carriage and gazed at them with kindling admiration.
The oppressive heat of the morning had now given place to a pleasant coolness, with a crisp exhilarating breeze. When John expressed his surprise at this, within a degree or two of the Equator, Said Mohammed explained that they were now four or five thousand feet above sea-level, among the Highlands of East Africa, where Europeans may live in health and comfort. By the time they reached Nairobi, indeed, the evening air was so chill that both Englishmen were glad to don their overcoats.
Said Mohammed deferentially took leave of them on the platform of the station, and disappeared among a crowd of Orientals gathered there; while Mr. Halliday inquired for the coffee-planter to whom he had an introduction, and who had offered him the hospitality of his bungalow so long as he remained in Nairobi.
CHAPTER THE SECOND--Said Mohammed, failed B.A.
Nairobi was disappointing. At a distance it looked like a cl.u.s.ter of tin cottages, and though these appeared larger and more substantial on a nearer view, they retained the dreary aspect of makes.h.i.+ft which corrugated iron always gives. Mr. Gillespie, however, the coffee-planter with whom the Hallidays were to stay, was hospitality itself; he and his good wife received their visitors with real Scottish heartiness of welcome. They gave them a capital dinner, and made them feel thoroughly at home.
Mr. Gillespie was much amused when, in answering his question about their journey from Mombasa, John told him of Said Mohammed, failed B.A.
”I'm that myself,” he said, with a comical smile--”failed M.A. of Glasgow, though I don't call myself so. Professor Ramsay's Latin Composition fair stuck me, that's a fact. Man, these Indians are a problem. We've some thousands of them here, industrious, quick, and able to live on next to nothing, which we Scotsmen have got out of the way of. I believe in free trade, when it is free; but I don't believe in free compet.i.tion with people who can beat us hollow, and these Indians will do that if we let 'em. We're bound to put restrictions on them.”
”But they're British subjects, sir,” John was beginning.
”Aye,” interrupted Mr. Gillespie, ”and so are the lions and rhinoceros of these parts, and we have to fight 'em. A country can't belong to both wild beasts and men; nor can it belong to black men and white; one or other must go to the wall. Not that the Indians are wild beasts, or even black; on the contrary, they're very decent folk in the main, and that's the worst of it. The only solution I see is to let them develop the Lowlands where we can't live, and to keep the Highlands for ourselves. Man, it's a grand country.”
After dinner Mr. Gillespie led his guests to the verandah, and providing them with deck-chairs and cigars, discussed with them their immediate future.
”We've a decent club here; I'll introduce you to-morrow, Halliday. You can get a round of golf; and there are several young la.s.sies who'll play lawn tennis all day with your son if he wishes.”
”Don't speak of it, man,” said Mr. Halliday hastily. ”We're out on business--strictly on business, and we've no time for playing till we've fixed on our land. Where is this Mount Kenya, anyway? John Gilmour--d'ye know him?--was out hunting a while ago, and he wrote me he'd found the very place for me, somewhere south-east of Mount Kenya; he stuck a post in the ground to mark the spot, and I've the directions written down somewhere.”
”Mount Kenya's a bit north-east of us, a hundred miles or so. Fine country, too.”
”And how do you get there?”
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