Christian or a Mohammedan, only he did not yet know which. For this reason he had come and worked for me, since I was a Christian, and he had stayed for three months in my house to see the
testurde
,—the ways and habits,—of the Christians. From me he would go for three months to Sheik Ali in Mombasa and study the testurde of the Mohammedans; then he would decide. I believe that even an Archbishop, when he had had these facts laid before him, would have said, or at least have thought, as I said: “Good God, Kitau, you might have told me that when you came here.”
The Mohammedans will not eat meat of any animal that has not had its throat cut by a Mohammedan in the orthodox manner. This is often a difficulty on a Safari, where you carry few provisions with you, and are dependent for your servants’ food on the game you shoot. When you shoot a Kongoni and it falls, your Mohammedans rush at it, as upon wings, to be in time to cut the throat of it before it dies, andyou yourself watch them in suspense, with burning eyes, for if they are seen standing over it with hanging arms and head, it means that the Kongoni has died before they got up to it, and you will have to stalk another Kongoni, or your gun-bearers will go starving.
When in the beginning of the war I was going out with my ox-wagons, the night before I started I happened to meet the Mohammedan Shereef up at Kijabe; I asked him if he could not give my people dispensation from the law for as long as our Safari lasted.
The Shereef was a young man, but wise, and he talked with Farah and Ismail and pronounced: “This lady is a disciple of Jesus Christ. When she fires off her rifle, she will say, or at least in her heart say:
In the name of God
, which will make her bullets equivalent to the knife of the orthodox Mohammedan. For the length of time of this journey, you can eat the meat of the animals that she shoots.”
The prestige of the Christian religion in Africa was weakened by the intolerance that the one Christian church showed towards the other.
On Christmas nights while I was in Africa I used to drive over to the French Mission to hear the Midnight Mass. It was generally hot at this time of the year; as you drove through the wattle plantation, you heard the chiming of the Mission bell a long way in the clear warm air. A crowd of happy, lively people were at the place round the church when you arrived, the French and Italian shopkeepers of Nairobi with their families had come out, the nuns from the convent school were present, and the Native congregation swarmed in gay clothes. The big fine church was lighted with many hundred candles and with great transparencies which the Fathers had themselves made.
When Christmas came, in the first year after Kamante had come into my house, I told him that I was going to take him with me to the Mass, as a fellow Christian, and described to him the beautiful things that he was going to see there, in the manner of the Fathers themselves. Kamante listened to it all, moved in his soul, and put on the best clothes he had. But when the car was at the door, he came back in great agitation of mind and said that he could not possibly come with me. He did not want to give me his reasons, and flinched from my questions; in the end it came out. No, he could not go, he had by now realized that it was to the French Mission that I meant to take him, and he had been so strongly warned against that Mission when he had been in Hospital. I explained to him that this was all a misunderstanding, and that he must come now. But at that he began to turn to stone before my eyes, he died, he turned up his eyes so that only the white showed in them and sweated in the face.
“No, no, Msabu,” he whispered, “I am not coming with you. There inside that big church, I know it well, there is a Msabu who is
mbaia sana
,”—terribly bad.
When I heard this I became very sad, but I thought that now I would indeed have to take him with me so that
testurde
,—the ways and habits,—of the Christians. From me he would go for three months to Sheik Ali in Mombasa and study the testurde of the Mohammedans; then he would decide. I believe that even an Archbishop, when he had had these facts laid before him, would have said, or at least have thought, as I said: “Good God, Kitau, you might have told me that when you came here.”
The Mohammedans will not eat meat of any animal that has not had its throat cut by a Mohammedan in the orthodox manner. This is often a difficulty on a Safari, where you carry few provisions with you, and are dependent for your servants’ food on the game you shoot. When you shoot a Kongoni and it falls, your Mohammedans rush at it, as upon wings, to be in time to cut the throat of it before it dies, andyou yourself watch them in suspense, with burning eyes, for if they are seen standing over it with hanging arms and head, it means that the Kongoni has died before they got up to it, and you will have to stalk another Kongoni, or your gun-bearers will go starving.
When in the beginning of the war I was going out with my ox-wagons, the night before I started I happened to meet the Mohammedan Shereef up at Kijabe; I asked him if he could not give my people dispensation from the law for as long as our Safari lasted.
The Shereef was a young man, but wise, and he talked with Farah and Ismail and pronounced: “This lady is a disciple of Jesus Christ. When she fires off her rifle, she will say, or at least in her heart say:
In the name of God
, which will make her bullets equivalent to the knife of the orthodox Mohammedan. For the length of time of this journey, you can eat the meat of the animals that she shoots.”
The prestige of the Christian religion in Africa was weakened by the intolerance that the one Christian church showed towards the other.
On Christmas nights while I was in Africa I used to drive over to the French Mission to hear the Midnight Mass. It was generally hot at this time of the year; as you drove through the wattle plantation, you heard the chiming of the Mission bell a long way in the clear warm air. A crowd of happy, lively people were at the place round the church when you arrived, the French and Italian shopkeepers of Nairobi with their families had come out, the nuns from the convent school were present, and the Native congregation swarmed in gay clothes. The big fine church was lighted with many hundred candles and with great transparencies which the Fathers had themselves made.
When Christmas came, in the first year after Kamante had come into my house, I told him that I was going to take him with me to the Mass, as a fellow Christian, and described to him the beautiful things that he was going to see there, in the manner of the Fathers themselves. Kamante listened to it all, moved in his soul, and put on the best clothes he had. But when the car was at the door, he came back in great agitation of mind and said that he could not possibly come with me. He did not want to give me his reasons, and flinched from my questions; in the end it came out. No, he could not go, he had by now realized that it was to the French Mission that I meant to take him, and he had been so strongly warned against that Mission when he had been in Hospital. I explained to him that this was all a misunderstanding, and that he must come now. But at that he began to turn to stone before my eyes, he died, he turned up his eyes so that only the white showed in them and sweated in the face.
“No, no, Msabu,” he whispered, “I am not coming with you. There inside that big church, I know it well, there is a Msabu who is
mbaia sana
,”—terribly bad.
When I heard this I became very sad, but I thought that now I would indeed have to take him with me so that
Similar Books
