Not long after this adventure the permanent
way reached the boundary of the Kapiti Plains,
where a station had to be built and where
accordingly we took up our headquarters for a
week or two. A few days after we had settled
down in our new camp, a great caravan of some
four thousand men arrived from the interior
with luggage and loads of food for a Sikh regiment
which was on its way down to the coast, after
having been engaged in suppressing the mutiny
of the Sudanese in Uganda. The majority of
these porters were Basoga, but there were also
fair numbers of Baganda (i.e. people of Uganda)
and of the natives of Unyoro, and various
other tribes. Of course none of these wild men of
Central Africa had either seen or heard of a
railway in all their lives, and they consequently
displayed the liveliest curiosity in regard to it,
crowding round one of the engines which happened
to be standing at the station, and hazarding
the wildest guesses as to its origin and use in
a babel of curious native languages. I thought
I would provide a little entertainment for them,
so I stepped on to the footplate and blew off the
steam, at the same time sounding the whistle.
The effect was simply magical. The whole crowd
first threw themselves flat on the ground howling
with fear, and then - with heads well down and
arms well spread out - they fled wildly in all
directions; nor did the stampede cease until I
shut off steam and stopped the whistle.
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