Thread by @HistoryKE

#HistoryKeThread: On The Hunt For Hunters

From memoirs of a British ivory trader, Alfred Ariel Hardwick, we learn more about the M’thara, Chuka and Kianjai clans of the wider Ameru community.

We also learn that there may have been wars between the Embu and Meru clans.

The setting is late 1899.

In that year, Hardwick and his fellow English friend George Henry Best set off for Kenya from Cairo, dreaming of landing jobs in Port Florence (Kisumu today), specifically as ship launch builders or harbour works engineers.

It is not clear if they were very successful. But there are records Best was among engineers who assembled and launched on Lake Victoria steamers that had been hauled into the interior in parts.

As time went by, they met an Englishman who hunted elephants and other game in Somaliland and Kenya’s north. They called him by his Somali nickname, El Hakim.

In his book, Expedition Through Kikuyu and Gallaland, Hardwick described El Hakim thus:

“In appearance he was nothing out of the common. He had dark hair and eyes, and an aquiline nose. He was a man of many and varied attainments. Primarily a member of the medical profession.....he was a leader one would have willingly followed to the ends of the earth....”

Years earlier, a Hungarian nobleman, Count Samuel Teleki (pictured, left) had ventured north of Mount Kenya on a hunting expedition. Teleki was at the time accompanied by an officer of the Austrian Navy, one Lieutenant Ludwig von Hohnel.

The duo reached Lake Rudolph, which they named so in honour of the Crown Prince and heir of Austria-Hungary. Lake Rudolph is Lake Turkana today.

Now El Hakim sought to emulate Count Teleki on a similar hunting expedition to present-day Kenya’s arid north. Somehow, he managed to convince two engineers - Hardwick and George Best, to join him.

Also joining them was an army of porters and camp assistants. Many of them were hired from the bazaar in Nairobi. A handful of them were drawn from the Kamba, and Wanyamwezi from present-day Tanzania.

There were also a dozen or so handlers - all Somalis - that El Hakim had worked with before, lugging rifles for the expedition.

Sometime in 1900, the expedition left Nairobi for their elephant hunting mission, heading northwards. After a few days’ march, they set up camp for a few days at a spot in Gîkûyûland. The main reason for the expedition’s stop was to buy and stockpile food from Agîkûyû traders.

The author, Hardwick, describes the place where they stopped to be Maranga. It is not clear if he meant Murang’a.

But I’m convinced he meant Murang’a.

Why?

Because Kînûthia, a local leader that Hardwick described as an Agîkûyû chief, brought him a note from Francis Hall.

An official of the Imperial British East Africa (IBEA) Company, Hall built Fort Hall (Murang’a town today) and became its administrator.

Anyway, from this area, they set off towards Sagana until they reached the land of the Embu. Once again, they set up camp here.

Although the author describes the community as the Wa’Embe, one can infer that he was referring to the Embu. Embu country was then, as now, naturally on the way between the land of the Agîkûyû and that of the Meru.

One day as the camp settled for lunch, Embu warriors surrounded their camp and from thickets in the distance, made war cries.

There was fear in the camp. Porters threw looks of apprehension, as if for orders, at their equally anxious European masters.

However, the Europeans instinctively put on brave faces. They feared that if they betrayed feelings of panic, their men would abscond and melt away in the dead of night as they were wont to do in those years.

After a while, the howling ceased. The next few days, save for one case of a guide who had absconded, were without incident.

While still within Embu, the expedition reached mountainous country. Enroute, they had managed to hire two Embu guides to help them manouvre towards the north of Mount Kenya.

The guides were however reluctant to venture deep beyond their own country for fear of the Chuka, the community that I believe Hardwick referred to as the Wa’zuka.

In spite of assurances by El Hakim of their safety, the duo, too, suddenly absconded during a trudge up a forested ridge.

It was evident that the Embu guides, for some reason, did not want to venture into the land of their northern neighbours. Was it because the communities were frequently in a state of war?

Nonetheless, the march continued. Just before they reached Chuka country, the caravan stumbled on mutilated body parts and skeletons of victims whom they believed to be Embu.

In Chuka, the three wazungu and their staff were warmly received by elders, who even showed them a spot on which they could set up camp and re-stock supplies.

A few days later, they resumed their march and reached a place that they learnt was called M’thara. The chief/leader of the place was called N’Dominuki.

In previous expeditions, El Hakim had encountered the chief and so this was a friendly reunion of sorts.

Indeed, N’Dominuki saw to it that the hunters’ camp had all the supplies they needed. It was at M’thara that a caravan of Ogadeni Somalis stumbled upon El Hakim and Hardwick’s camp.

Some of the Somali porters in the camp recognized a few of their tribesmen and received them with “due ceremony”. Hardwick described the warm embraces and excited Mohammedani greetings that ensued among the Somalis.

The visiting Somalis were led by Noor Adam. Through an interpreter, El Hakim learnt that the Somalis had earlier lost some of their men to a community of Wa’Embe.

It was then that the two camps agreed that the Wa’Embe had to be taught a lesson.

Hardwick and El Hakim gathered their men and armed some of them, mostly the Somalis, with snider rifles.

Ahead of the march southwards to Embe, N’Dominuki agreed to offer his nephew to undertake espionage activities on the enemy. The young lad was asked to return with a report within two days, after which the joint punitive force would descend on the Embe with a vengeance.

N’Dominuki’s nephew did return as had been agreed, and shared details of Embu positions and possible attack routes.

Upon review of the intelligence information, the force got ready to confront the enemy.

Wrote Hardwick:

“We intended to start just before dusk, pass through M’thara in the darkness, and be over the Embe border unperceived at midnight. A short rest and a dash on the Wa’Embe at dawn would complete the operation. It was a good plan, and would have answered admirably...

....but for one of those little accidents that make ‘the best-laid schemes o’mice and men gang aft angley’”.

He went on to describe Embe country.

“Embe on this side (the west) consists of a range of steep mountains, where it rains nearly all year round. It has, therefore, a moist climate and fertile soil, and its steep slopes and deep valleys are covered with dense jungle interspersed with banana plantations, making....

....it a very nasty country to fight in, especially against natives who know every inch of the ground and every turn of the paths...”

When the party reached the fringes of Embu country, El Hakim, Hardwick and George identified a spot in a forested part where they intended to put up for the night. It was close to a cleared path that El Hakim had used before.

After dinner, the three wazungu retired to sleep. A Somali, Jamah Mahomet, was in charge of sentries. He placed armed guards at various strategic corners around the makeshift camp.

Sometime in the midnight, the calmness of the night was loudly interrupted by the sound of a gunshot coming from the direction of where one of the guards was posted.

All three wazungu instinctively reached out for their rifles.

“On sending for explanations”, recorded Hardwick, “we found that some Wa’Embe, coming down the path, had stumbled right on to the sentries, and were instantly fired upon. All hope of a surprise....

....was thus abolished, but on consultation we decided that if we started an hour or so earlier, possibly 3am, we might take the enemy at a disadvantage. Accordingly, at that time we once more set out....”

It was “dark as Erebus”, is how Hardwick described the night.

Muscles tensed and eyes opened wide, the force furtively marched along a path towards Embu, guns at the ready.

N’Dominuki’s nephew and a Maasai guide (well, it was discovered later that the guide was an impostor, and Embu by tribe - a story for another day) led the way.

Behind them were four of the Somalis as advance-guard; then Jamah Mahomet, who was wearing a waterproof coat over his khaki costume.

Behind the lead Somali guards were El Hakim, George and Hardwick. The rest were left behind at camp.

Along the path, the expedition stumbled upon a spear. It must have been dropped by one of the fleeing Wa’Embu when fired at by the sentries, they thought to themselves.

As they advanced, the ground became more treacherous. Ahead was a deep ravine at the bottom of which was a roaring river.

“Beyond the ravine the path sloped upwards with many twists and turns”.

On each side, Hardwick recalled that the thick forests prevented them from being able to discern anything beyond a few yards.

“We advanced slowly and cautiously in the order described, when a shot rang out almost under our feet; another followed; and then a volley from the advance-guard showed that something serious was toward”, wrote Hardwick.

It was an ambush. The time was around 4am.

Hardwick recalled “Agîkûyû war chants” of u-u-u-u-i-i that rent the air, only that attackers were undoubtedly Embu.

He described the pandemonium.

“The firing at once became general all along the line. It was a very fierce fusillade while it lasted; the reports of the rifles and the cheers of our men, mingled with the war-cries of the enemy, sounding weird and ghastly in the dense blackness of the early morning...”

Neither El Hakim nor Hardwick could spot a single native. The darkness and twists on the path couldn’t enable them spot George, either. Only a few moments back, he was a yard or so away.

El Hakim clutched Hardwick’s arm and dragged him into a sitting position on the ground “as the whining, hissing rush and plaintive whine of bullets in unpleasant proximity to our ears warned us that we were in considerable danger of being shot by our own men”.

During a brief lull of the firing, the Somali guards acceded to orders bellowed by El Hakim and Hardwick to cease fire. In the momentary silence, Hardwick then called out to George and to his great relief, he answered back.

Almost immediately, they discerned George’s frame in the darkness. He told them that Jamah Mahomet lay wounded further down the path.

They rushed to the spot to find Jamah stretched upon the ground, moaning pitifully in pain. A massive spear had been driven right through his body.

Hardwick reasoned that in the darkness, an Embu warrior lurking in the thickets must have mistaken Jamah Mahomet’s tall form, clad in European clothes, for George, and as the Somali man passed, he thrust the spear with all his strength.

George, who was only a few yards behind, had witnessed the thrust, and, raising his rifle, shot the native through the stomach. The Embu warrior however managed to flee with his injuries.

George’s was the shot that sounded the first alarm.

As Jamah lay on the ground, breathing his last, Hardwick and George were itching to pursue the Embu attackers. But the rest of the Somali guards would hear none of that.

The enemy was now fully prepared for them, they countered. Indeed, as if to vindicate the Somalis’ argument, freshly dug trap pits on each side of the path were found as the party looked for a spot on which to bury their fallen guard.

Hardwick, Abel Hakim and George also feared that the Wa’M’thara or the Wa’Chanjai would attack and loot their camp in their absence. Besides, the trio were now without any willing guides.

So they called off any plans for a pursuit.

Hardwick described the feeling as they retreated.

“It was with very mixed feelings that we travelled back over the difiicult path we had trodden a few hours before with such confidence. We found out afterwards that our sudden retreat disconcerted the Wa’Embe, who were massed in force further along the path at a place where....

....they had dug a large number of pits, in which they had placed sharpened spikes for our reception”.

Days later, Chief N’Dominuki learnt of the attack by the Embu and sympathized with the Europeans for the loss. He suggested they could still exact revenge on the Embu by attacking them through a flatter, less treacherous route.

But to the dismay of the Europeans, the Somali guides again flatly declined to join the revenge mission. Not even suggestions by Hardwick to the reluctant Somalis that Jamah’s killers were non-Mohammedans and deserved to face the wrath of Allah could win their minds over.

In the end, the wazungu trio abandoned the Embu revenge mission, packed up and set out towards Uaso Nyiro on their originally intended ivory hunting mission.

Before I conclude, Hardwick had interesting observations of the attitudes and work ethic of their expedition workers throughout his stay in East Africa.

On the Wakamba, he noted that they “on the whole, are a very cheerful tribe, and though of small physique, possess wonderful powers of endurance, the women equally with the men...”

Hardwick also was impressed by the perseverance and sheer strength of the porters.

“We calculated that some of our men, in addition to their 60lbs. load, carried another 30lbs. weight in personal effects, rifle, and ammunition so that altogether they carried 90 lbs. dead weight during one or sometimes two marches a day...

....for weeks at a stretch, often on insufficient food, and sometimes on no food at all....”

Still on the Wakamba, Hardwick observed that their greatest weakness was in “their penchant for stealing from the native villages whatever they could lay their hands on, being encouraged thereto by the brave and noble Swahilis, who, while not wanting to risk our displeasure....

....by openly doing likewise, urged on the simple Wakamba...”

In contrast, Hardwick had nothing but praise for the Wanyamwezi.

“We had six of them with us, and we always found them steady and wiling, good porters, and less trouble than any other men in the safari. They were very clannish, keeping very much to themselves, seldom complained....very different from the noisy, argumentative Waswahili...”

The other lesson I learnt from Hardwick was that the Embu, like the Agîkûyû from Fort Hall, applied a combat tactic that was similar.

Hardwick reported that the Embu dug spiked pits on the ground in order to ensnare the enemy. So did the Agîkûyû of Fort Hall around the same time, according to William Routledge, author of The Akikuyu of British East Africa”.

Check out Routledge’s sketches of the spiked pits in Fort Hall on

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