We here experienced for the first time the ravishing splendour of the equatorial highlands. The Ndara range reaches a height of 5,000 feet and is covered from summit to base with a luxuriant vegetation; a number of silvery brooks and streams murmur and roar down its sides to the valleys; and the view from favourably situated points is most charming. As we rested here a whole day, most of us used the opportunity to make excursions through the marvellous scenery, being most courteously guided about by several Englishmen who had settled here for missionary and business purposes. I could not penetrate so far as I wished into the tangle of delicious shadowy valleys and hills which surrounded us, because I had to arrange for the provisioning of the caravan both in Teita and for the desert districts between Teita and the Kilimanjaro. But my more fortunate companions scaled the neighbouring heights, spent the night either on or just below the summits, refreshed themselves with the cool mountain air, and came back intoxicated with all the beauty they had enjoyed. Even at the foot of the Teita hills it was scarcely less charming. The bath under one of the splashing waterfalls, fanned by the mild air and odours of evening, would ever have been one of the pleasantest recollections of my life, if Africa had not offered me still more glorious natural scenes.
We spent the 14th and 15th in leisurely marches through this paradise, in which a rich booty in giraffes and various kinds of antelopes fell to our huntsmen. Everywhere we concluded friendly alliances with the tribes and their chiefs, and sealed our alliances with presents. During the two following days we worked our way through the uninhabited--but therefore the richer in game--desert of Taveta, which in fact is not so bad as its reputation; and on the afternoon of the 17th we approached the cool forests of the foot-hills of the Kilima, where a strange surprise was hi store for us.
When we were a few miles from Taveta and--as is customary in Africa--had announced the arrival of our caravan by a salvo from our guns, Johnston and I, riding at the head of the train, saw a man galloping towards us with loose rein, in whom we at once recognised the leader of our advance-guard, Engineer Demestre. The haste with which he galloped towards us at first gave us some anxiety; but his smiling face soon showed us that it was no ill-luck which brought him to us. He signalled to me from a distance, and cried as he checked his horse in front of us: 'Your sister and Miss Fox are in Taveta.'
Both Johnston and I must have made most absurd grimaces at this unexpected announcement, for Demestre broke out into uproarious laughter, in which at last we joined. Then he told us that, on the previous evening, when he and his party arrived at Taveta, the two ladies had accosted him in the streets as unconcernedly as if it were a casual meeting at home, had altogether ignored the slight they had received, and, when asked, had told him in an indifferent tone that they had travelled hither from Aden, whence they started on the 30th of April--therefore while we were waiting at Mombasa--to Zanzibar, whence, after a short stay, they went to Pangani and, taking the route by Mkumbara and the Jipé lake, reached Taveta on the 14th of May. They were accompanied by their servant and friend, Sam--a worthy old negro who was Miss Fox's constant attendant--and four elephants upon which they rode, to the boundless astonishment of the negroes. They were quite comfortable in Taveta. 'Miss Clara sends greetings, and bids me tell you that she longs to press you to her sisterly heart.'
When I saw that Demestre was not joking I put spurs to my horse, and in a few minutes found myself in a shady, bowery woodland road which led from the open country into Taveta. Soon after I saw the two ladies, one of whom ran towards me with outstretched arms and, almost before I had touched the ground, warmly embraced me, she weeping aloud the while. After the first storm of emotion was over, I tried to get from my sister a fuller account of her appearance here among the savages; but I failed, for as often as the good creature began her story it was interrupted by her tears and her expressions of joy at seeing me again, as well as by thoughts of all the dangers from which I--heedless boy!--had been preserved by nothing but my good luck. In the meantime Miss Fox had come up to us. She returned my greeting with a slight tinge of sarcasm, but none the less cordially; and I at length learned from her all that I wished to know.
I found that the two, at their very first meeting, had come to an understanding and decided upon the principal features of their plot, reserving the arrangement of details until we had left Europe. My sister had found in Miss Fox the energy and the possession of the requisite pecuniary means for the independent undertaking of an expedition, against the will of the men; and Miss Fox had found in my sister the companion and elder protectress, without whom even she would have shrunk from such a bold enterprise. As Miss Fox was exactly informed of all our plans, she was able to copy them in her own arrangements. She procured what she needed from the manufacturers and brokers from whom we got our provisions, articles of barter, and travelling necessaries. Like us, she substituted sumpter beasts for pagazis; only, in order to be original in at least one point, she chose elephants instead of horses, camels, or asses. She inferred that, as elephants--though hitherto untamed--abounded in all the districts to which we were going, Indian elephants would thrive well throughout Equatorial Africa. A business friend of her late father's in Calcutta bought for her four fine specimens of these pachyderms, and sent them with eight experienced keepers and attendants to Aden, whence she took them with her to Zanzibar. Here several guides and interpreters were hired; and, in order not to come into collision with us too near the coast, she chose the route by Pangani. The curiosity of the natives was here and there a little troublesome; but, thanks mainly to the courteous attentions of the German agents stationed in Mkumbana, Membe, and Taveta, the expedition had not met with the slightest mishap. On their arrival at Taveta they had at once dismissed their Swahili, and intended to join our expedition with the elephants and Indians--unless we insisted on leaving them behind us alone in Taveta.
What was to be done under such circumstances? It followed as a matter of course that the two Amazons must henceforth form a part of our expedition; and, to tell the truth, I knew not how to be angry with either my sister or Miss Fox for their persistency. The worst dangers might be considered as averted by the affair with the Masai in Duruma; the difficulties of the journey were, as the result showed, no more than women could easily brave. Therefore I gave myself up without anxiety to the joy of the unexpected reunion. I was gratified to note also that the other members of the expedition welcomed this addition to our numbers. So the elephants with their fair burdens--for it may be added in passing that my sister, notwithstanding her thirty-eight years, still retains her good looks--had their place assigned to them in our caravan.
We bade farewell to our Masai friends outside Taveta. They were commissioned to inform their countrymen that we should reach the frontier of Lytokitok in eight or ten days, and that it was our intention to go through the whole of Masailand in order to find a locality suitable for our permanent settlement. This settlement of ours would be in the highest degree profitable to the race in whose neighbourhood we should build our dwellings, as we should make such race rich and invincible by any of their foes. We should force no one to receive us and give us land, although we possessed--as they were convinced--sufficient power to do so; and many thousands of our brethren were only awaiting a message from us to come and join us. If, however, a free passage were not peaceably granted to us through any territory, we knew how to force it. We finally made our blood-brethren solemnly engage to bring as many tribes as possible into alliance with us, especially those who dwelt on the route to the Naivasha lake, our route to the Kenia mountain; and we parted with mutual expressions of good will. They had shown themselves most agreeable fellows, and as parting mementos we gave them a number of what in their eyes were very valuable presents for their beloved ones--the so-called 'Dittos'--such as brass wire, brass bracelets and rings with imitation stones, hand-mirrors, strings of glass pearls, cotton articles, and ribbons. These gifts, which in Europe had not cost £20 altogether, were--as we afterwards had occasion to prove--worth among the Masai as much as a hundred fat oxen; and the el-moran were struck dumb with our generosity. But in their eyes Johnston's final gift was beyond all price--a cavalry sabre with iron sheath and a good Solingen blade for each of the departing heroes. To give ocular demonstration of the quality of