Unfurl your fans and take out your kerchiefs to hide your blushes. We are about to have a stroll among the Kavirondo, who inhabit the eastern shores of Lake Victoria on the western edge of Kenya Colony. These people are all more or less naked, and some of the sights we dare not describe. We have our cameras with us, but our Postmaster General would not allow some of our films to go through the mails, and no newspaper would publish certain pictures we take.

We are in the heart of the continent, on the wide Gulf of Kavirondo on the eastern shore of the second greatest fresh-water lake of the world. That island-studded sea in front of us is Lake Victoria; and over there at the northwest, less than a week’s march on foot and less than two days by the small steamers which ply on the lake, is Napoleon Gulf, out of which flows that great river, the Nile. With the glass one may see the hippopotami swimming near the shores of Kavirondo Bay, while behind us are plains covered with pastures and spotted with droves of cattle, antelope, and gnu, grazing not far from the queerly thatched huts of the stark-naked natives.

The plains have a sparse growth of tropical trees, and looking over them we can catch sight of the hills which steadily rise to the Mau Escarpment of the Great Rift Valley. Still farther east are the level highlands of Kenya Colony, the whole extending on and on to Mombasa and the Indian Ocean, as far distant from Kisumu as Cleveland is from New York. I have been travelling for days in coming the five hundred and eighty-four miles which lie between us and the ocean.

Kisumu, formerly known as Port Florence, is the terminus of the Uganda Railway, the principal port of Lake Victoria, and quite a commercial centre. Steamers sail from Kisumu weekly to Uganda ports and back, and fortnightly round the lake by alternate routes, i.e., north and south. The trade is greatly increasing, and ivory, hides, grain, and rubber from Tanganyika Territory, the Upper Congo, and the lands to the north of the lake are shipped through here to the coast. The cars come right down to a wooden wharf which extends well out into the Kavirondo Gulf. On the lake are several small steamers, brought up here in pieces and put together, which are now bringing in freight from all parts of this big inland sea.

At the custom house inside an enclosure close to the wharf the travellers had to pay a fee of fifty cents a package on all parcels except personal luggage. I was glad we got in before six-thirty, the closing hour for all custom houses in Uganda ports, for after that if I were carrying a parcel I should have to slip five rupees to the official in charge.

Kisumu is just a little tin town in the African wilds, yet there is a hotel where one can stay quite comfortably until he takes the steamer for the lake trip. There is an Indian bazaar near the station, but the post office, the few government buildings, and most of the residences are built on the hill to get the breeze from the lake. The Victoria Road and the Connaught Promenade are well laid out. Near the station there is a cotton ginnery where considerable quantities of cotton from Uganda are ginned and baled for export. A trail leads across country from Kisumu to Mumias, forty-eight miles away, and to Jinja, the source of the Nile.

The European population consists of some soldiers belonging to the King’s African Rifles, of the government officials, and of some employees of the railroad. The officials put on great airs. Among the passengers who came in with me yesterday was a judge who will settle the disputes among the natives. He was met at the cars by some soldiers and a gang of convicts in chains. The latter had come to carry his baggage and other belongings to his galvanized iron house on the hill and each was dressed in a heavy iron collar with iron chains extending from it to his wrists and ankles. Nevertheless, they were able to aid in lifting the boxes and in pushing them off on trucks, prodded to their work all the while by the guns of the soldiers on guard.

But let us “take our feet in our hands,” as Uncle Remus says, and tramp about. Later on we may march off into the country through which I travelled for about fifty miles on my way here. In the town itself we may now and then see a man with a blanket wrapped around him, and the men frequently wear waist cloths behind or in front. Outside of the town they are stark naked. All have skins of a dark chocolate brown. They have rather intelligent faces, woolly hair, and lips and noses like those of a Negro. They belong to the Bantu family and are among the best formed of the peoples of Africa. Some one has said that travelling through their country is like walking through miles of living statuary.

Take these Kavirondo men who have gathered about me just now as I write. Some of them look as though they might have been cut from black marble by a sculptor. Look at those three brown bucks at my left. They are as straight as Michelangelo’s famed statue of David and about as well formed. See how firmly they stand on their black feet. Their heads are thrown back and two have burst out laughing as I turn my camera toward them. With my eye I can follow the play of all their muscles as they slip beneath those smooth ebony skins. The Kavirondo seem the perfection of physical manhood. That nude fellow next me has a coil of wire about his biceps and a pound of wire on his right wrist. He is smoking a pipe, but it just hangs between his teeth, which shine out, flashing white as he smiles.

The man next him has two brass rings on each of his black thumbs, bands of telegraph wire around his wrists, and two wide coils of wire above and below the biceps of his left arm. He has five wire bands about his neck, circles of wire under each knee, and great anklets of twisted wire on each of his feet. As I look I can see the calloused places where the wire has worn into his instep. There are worse ones on that third man whose ankles are loaded with twisted wire. The latter must have several pounds on each leg, and the wire on the right leg extends from the foot to the middle of the calf.

Now look at their heads. The first man has short wool which hugs the scalp, and the other two have twisted their hair so that it hangs down about the head like Medusa’s locks.

Stopping for a moment, I ask the men to turn around so I may get a view from the rear. They are not quite so naked as I had supposed, for each has an apron of deerskin as big as a lady’s pocket handkerchief fastened to his waistband behind. The aprons, tanned with the fur on, are tied to the belts with deerskin straps. As far as decency goes, they are of no value at all, and they seem to be used more for ornament than anything else.

Let us train our cameras now on the women. They are by no means so fine looking as the men, being shorter and not so well formed. The younger girls are clad in bead waist belts, while the older ones have each a tassel of fibre tied to a girdle about the waist. This tassel is fastened just at the small of the back and hangs down behind. At a short distance it looks like a cow’s tail. I am told that it is an indispensable article of dress for every married woman, and that it is improper for a stranger to touch it. Sir Harry Johnston, who once governed these people, says that even a husband dares not touch this caudal appendage worn by his wife, and if, by mistake, it is touched, a goat must be sacrificed or the woman will die from the insult.

Some of the native women here in Kisumu wear little aprons of fibre, about six inches long, extending down at the front. I can see dozens of them so clad all about me, and for a penny or so can get any of them to pose for my camera. The young girls have no clothes at all. This is the custom throughout the country. Indeed, farther back in the interior the fringe aprons are removed, and both sexes are clad chiefly in wire jewellery of various kinds.

The strangest thing about the nudity of these savages is that they are absolutely unconscious of any strangeness in it. Such of them as have not met Europeans do not know they are naked; and a married woman with her tail of palm fibre feels fully dressed. A traveller tells how he tried to introduce clothing to a gang of naked young women whom he met out in the country. He cut up some American sheeting and gave each girl a piece. They looked at the cloths with interest, but evidently did not know what to do with them. Thereupon the white man took a strip and tied it about the waist of one of the party. Upon this the other girls wrapped their pieces about their waists, but a moment later took them off, saying: “These are foreign customs and we do not want them.”

During my stay in the Kavirondo country I have gone out among the villages and have seen the natives in their homes and at work. The land is thickly populated. The people are good natured, enterprising, and quiet. One can go anywhere without danger, and there is no difficulty in getting photographs of whatever one wants.

I am surprised at the great number of married women. One knows their status from those sacred tails. The Kavirondo girls marry very early. They are often betrothed at the age of six years; but in such case the girl stays with her parents for five or six years afterward. The parents sell their girls for a price, a good wife being purchasable for forty hoes, twenty goats, and a cow. In the case of an early betrothal the suitor pays down part of the fixed sum and the rest in installments until all is paid. If the father refuses to give up the girl when the time comes for marriage, the payments having been made, the suitor organizes a band of his friends, captures her, and carries her home. A man usually takes his wife from a different village from that in which he lives. When he comes with his band to the bride’s village, her gentlemen friends often resist the invasion and fight the suitor’s party with sticks. At such times the girl screams, but I understand that she usually allows herself to be captured.

I hear that old maids are not popular and that the average Kavirondo girl is just as anxious to be married as are our maidens at home. Indeed, she is usually so uneasy that, if she does not get a bid in the ordinary way, she will pick out a man and arrange to have herself offered to him at a reduced rate. There are plenty of plump Kavirondo maidens now on the bargain counter.

Another queer marriage custom here affects a man’s sister-in-law. The man who gets the eldest girl in a family is supposed to have the refusal of all the younger ones as they come to marriageable age. The polygamous Kavirondo may thus have several sisters among his wives.

One would suppose that these girls might be rather loose in their morals. On the contrary, I am told that they rank much better in this regard than the maidens of Uganda in the province adjoining, nearly all of whom wear clothing. Virtue stands high here, and infractions of its laws are always punished, though less severely now than in the past. Divorces are not common, but a man can get rid of his wives if he will. One curious custom decrees that if a husband and wife have a quarrel, and she leaves the hut and he shuts the door after her, that action alone is equivalent to a divorce and the woman goes back to her own people at once.

But let us go out into the country and look at some of the Kavirondo villages. I have visited many and have had no trouble whatever in going into the houses. There are numerous little settlements scattered over the plains between here and the hills, with footpaths running from village to village. Most of them are small, a dozen huts or so forming a good-sized settlement.

The roof usually projects beyond the walls of the hut, covering a sort of veranda, a part of which is inclosed. There are poles outside supporting the roof of the veranda.

The huts are usually built around an open space and are joined by fences of rough limbs and roots, so that each collection of huts forms a stockade in which the animals belonging to the village can be kept at night. Sometimes a village may be made of a number of such circles, each collection of huts belonging to one family. One of the shacks is for the polygamous husband and one for each of his wives.

Let us go inside one of the houses. We stoop low as we enter. The floor is of mud, with a few skins scattered over it. The skins are the sleeping places. Notice that little pen at the back, littered with dirt. That is where the goats sleep. The chickens are put in that tall basket over there in the corner and are covered up until morning. Except for a few pots, there is practically no furniture. The cooking is done in clay vessels over that fire in the centre of the hut, and the food is served in small baskets, the men eating first and the women taking what is left.

Outside each house, under the veranda, is the mill of the family, which consists of a great stone with a hole chipped out of the centre. The women grind Indian corn or sorghum seed in such mills, pounding or rubbing the grain with a second stone just a little smaller than the hole. In the grinding, bits of the stone come off and are mixed with the meal, often causing chronic indigestion.

Some of the older Kavirondo villages are nothing but cemeteries. The people are superstitious and want to be buried in the places in which they have lived. When a chief dies, his body is interred in the centre of his hut. He is placed in the grave in a sitting posture, just deep enough to allow his head and neck to be above ground. The head is then covered with an earthen pot, which is left there until the ants get in and clean off the skull. After this the skull is buried close to the hut or within it and the skeleton is taken out and reburied on some hilltop or other sacred place.

Ordinary people are buried in their own huts lying on their right sides with their legs doubled up under their chins. The hut is then left and forms a monument to the dear departed. Where there have been epidemic diseases one may sometimes find a whole village of such houses occupied only by the dead. The huts are left until they fall to pieces.

The Kavirondos are a stock-raising people. I see their little flocks of sheep and goats everywhere, and frequently pass droves of humped cattle. Fat cows graze over the plains, usually in droves watched by cowherds. Every drove has a flock of white birds about it. Some of the birds are on the ground, and some are perched on the backs of the cattle, eating the insects and vermin they find there. They are probably the rhinoceros birds, which feed on the flies and other insects preying on those great beasts and which, by their flying, warn them of the approach of danger. The cattle are driven into the villages at night or into small inclosures outside. The women do the milking, but are not allowed to drink the milk, although they may mix it with flour into a soup.

This Kavirondo country is very rich. All over the plains from here to the mountains the trees have been cut off, but the ground is covered with luxuriant grass. Near the villages are little cultivated patches in which the natives raise peanuts, Indian corn, and a millet-like sorghum. I see them everywhere digging up the black soil. Their naked bodies are almost as dark as the dirt they are hoeing. The British are developing the Kavirondos as general farm workers. Their wages range from three to five rupees a month.

Around Lake Victoria and all along the Uganda Railway large tracts of land have been taken up by Europeans, and some of this is being ditched and drained. I gather that it is the intention to turn the whole into one great cotton plantation, and see no reason why that should not be done.

THE END