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In August 1958, together with my wife and 17-month old daughter, I
disembarked from the Union Castle liner "Kenya Castle" in Dar es
Salaam. We left the ship with some relief for it had been a very hot
passage through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea with no air conditioning
in the cabin. After a week in Dar for briefings and a round of calls on
officials including the Governor I was posted to Kondoa Irangi in the
Central Province. We took the weekly train on the old German-built railway
line as far as Dodoma and then travelled on by Land Rover over a
hundred miles of dirt road to Kondoa, with all our belongings following in
an open government truck.
Kondoa at that time consisted of a small trading centre on the far side of a
sand river partly inhabited by descendants of Arab slave traders. On the
near side stood the District Office or boma, a magnificent white Beau
Geste style fort with a crenellated tower built by the Germans. The two
sides were linked by a somewhat precarious suspension footbridge. On
the same side as the boma there was a scattering of a few European style
houses.
As a very junior District Officer cadet I was allocated a simple mud brick
house with three inter-connecting rooms and a corrugated iron roof. We
later added a concrete platform to walk out on. The kitchen was in a
separate thatched hut with a wood-burning "Dover" stove. We had the
luxury of piped water from a tank further up the hill. The water could be
heated by firewood in a "Tanganyika boiler" - an open 44 gallon drum
attached to the outside of the house. There was no electricity and the only
communication with the outside world was via a radio transmitter in the
boma for half an hour a day. But we had pressurised oil lamps for light
and a very efficient paraffin fridge. We also had a Deccalian record player
powered by the car battery for entertainment, plus a young orphan Rhesus
monkey and a large chameleon.
Shortly after my arrival the District Commissioner asked me to go and
arrest five Masai warriors who had rustled some cattle from their local
Warangi owners. Such events were not uncommon as the Masai had the
convenient belief that God had given all the cattle in the world to them,
and Kondoa was on the edge of Masai country. Accordingly I set out in the government Land Rover pick-up with a local messenger from the
boma. The borehole where the Masai were reported to be watering the
cattle was about 40 miles east of Kondoa. As this was only a one day
safari I decided to take my wife and daughter along for the ride.
On arriving at the borehole we found five tall Masai warriors standing near
it with their spears and the cattle. As we approached them they formed a
circle around our tiny blonde-haired daughter and, to our horror, began
spitting on to her head. Our concern was allayed somewhat when the
messenger explained that this was a traditional form of blessing. We later
discovered that she was the first white child these Masai had ever seen.
Despite their gesture of goodwill, I then had to tell the messenger to explain
to them that they were being arrested for stealing cattle and that they
should get into the back of the pick-up. It never occurred to me that they
might simply have refused or indeed that they might have disputed the
allegation that the cattle were in fact stolen. More importantly, and
fortunately for us, it never occurred to them either. Had it occurred to them
to resist arrest there was absolutely no plan B. They could simply have
disappeared into the Serengeti and our tiny African police force in the
district could not have found them even if they had tried. In the event they
climbed happily into the back for the journey to Kondoa where they
subsequently spent a few weeks in "Her Majesty's Hoteli" as the local
prison was known in Swahili.
Looking back it seems to me that this small episode illustrates how, in
Tanganyika at any rate, British rule was dependent on the willing support,
or at least acquiescence, of most of the people. Without that it would not
have survived.
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