In 1909, while on his hunting safari, Ret. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt decided to tour Fort Hall (Murang’a town today).
On the day of his visit, traditional Agïküyü chiefs, along with throngs of their subjects, waited curiously for the triumphant entry of this important mzungu visitor.
I wonder what was in the mind of the locals. That the King of the white man’s tribe was on his way?
Perhaps.
It was also evident that the British administrators had made grand plans in concert with the locals’ leaders to grant Ted a rousing welcome.
For instance, if you examine the photo below closely, Kavirondo warriors resplendent in their elaborate ostrich headdresses can be seen among the crowd. The British must have made effort to impress their guest by ferrying villagers from far and near, making the visit look like a national event.
And from his memoirs, Ted helps give us glimpses of how the day turned out. These were his observations as he approached Murang’a from the Thika side:
"…A good road for carriages, wagons or automobiles — and you see them all — runs from Nairobi, via Fort Hall and Embu, to the wonderful region of which Mount Kenya is the center. Embu is twenty-eight miles from Fort Hall and is the most distant military post which the British have established in that direction. Fort Hall is nearly opposite Mount Kenya, south of the Tana River, and Embu lies to the southeast of that wonderful dome of nature.
The road which takes one to these outposts passes through a varied country, often wild and seamed with gorges in its first stages, but generally fertile and well watered by various tributaries of the Athi and Tana rivers.
The spacious colonial estates, or ranches, are scattered along the route for thirty or forty miles from Nairobi. One farm may grow coffee — which is such a luxuriant crop — and on the next estate may be herded together, by a native child or full-grown, a miscellaneous but placid assortment of ostriches, sheep and cattle. A complete dairy farm is liable to be in operation in the vicinity; also a truck garden producing sweet potatoes, Indian corn, beans and other vegetables may adjoin it.
At one place is to be found a plucky English family grappling with a 10,000 acre farm, their neighbor an old Boer, who, after having trekked the length of Africa to avoid the British flag, now stolidly smokes his pipe by his grass house, tends to his small herd of indifferent looking cattle; in his way, is hospitable to his British coworkers, and eager enough to show the tourist what he knows about the whereabouts of lions.
About half a day’s safari from Fort Hall, where the Chania and Thika rivers effect a juncture with the main stream of the Tana, is a beautiful meadowy tract within sight and hearing of fine plunging waterfalls, and the locality is one of the favorite camping grounds for lion hunters. It is an agreeable programme, after indulging in the sport the first half of the day, to spend the afternoon in a ride to Fort Hall, through a green, comparatively smooth and pleasant country. There will be found the commissioner’s house, with a ditch around it, a jail, an Indian bazaar and a few houses for the militia and police.
If the visitor is fortunate, he will arrive while a great gathering of Kikuku chiefs, warriors and women is loudly discussing the dance of the following morning. He will then accept the commissioner’s invitation to stay overnight.
In the morning, long before daylight, the whole space in front of the fort is packed with almost naked warriors, while the beating of drums, the blowing of horns and the chanting of yokes in a crude rhythm fully awakes all would-be sightseers to the coming war dance.
And when the “indaba” does begin, later in the morning, it is a sight to be remembered. The pack of plumed, squirming, gyrating, yelling warriors, their hair and chocolate colored bodies smeared with red earth and glistening with the slimy juice of the castor oil plant; legs and arms encircled with twisted wire or heavier iron ornaments; leopard skins waving from their shoulders, and their broad cowhide or rhinoceros shields, painted with tribal emblems, and long spears clashing together, as particular chiefs advance and retreat in the dance, or as gifts of live sheep and bulls are brought forward into the arena — these are the weird features of the exhibition.
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The laughable side of the picture is the obvious fondness of the African warrior for any European article of clothing, which he proudly parades before his people — an old pair of trousers, a torn jacket, a weather-stained uniform, a ragged umbrella or battered helmet[/SIZE].
Mixing such articles as these with their time-honored ostrich plumes, capes of leopard skin, belts of monkey fur and metal anklets and bracelets, is a characteristic but still ludicrous mingling of New and Old Africa…"http://i.imgur.com/hFP99Rr.png