African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 61: Chapter 57 Expedition Team

January 12, 1867.

Namanga, a small place at the border of Kenya and Tanzania.

An expedition team is progressing northward within Namanga, led by a self-taught explorer from the German region, Henriette.

Henriette had always loved hearing adventurous tales from the elders in her hometown, longing to explore like those story protagonists, so she dreamed of adventures around the world as she grew up, seeking excitement and novelty.

The first destination Henriette chose was Africa, as Africa was the most mysterious place in contemporary Europe. Unfortunately, Henriette didn’t have any money to buy a ticket to Africa.

Fortunately, at that time Ernst was recruiting in the German region for people to explore the East African colony, and Henriette signed up.

Henriette, like Captain Arman, was among the earliest members of the East African colony mercenary team.

With the mercenary team, Henriette set off from the Baltic Sea, crossing the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and arrived in East Africa.

Initially, the East African colonial mercenary team was not very familiar with the interior environment of East Africa, so surveys of the inland areas were needed, leading to the formation of several expedition teams to explore these regions, selected and volunteered from over two thousand Germans in the early East African colony.

Henriette, being the first to sign up for the expedition team, was appointed the leader of a small squad. He led a team of over ten people, exploring westward to areas near Soron Lake (Lake Tanganyika).

This exploration of Kenya is still led by Henriette, participating in the geographical survey of East Africa, but this time the exploration is moving north from the East African colony into Kenya.

Simultaneously, there was another small team dispatched from Mwanza’s capital in the Great Lakes Region (Lake Victoria), exploring northward along the eastern edge of the Great Lake.

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A few days ago, Henriette’s party set off from Karatuu, first heading east to reach the Arusha stronghold, and then veered north to arrive at Namanga today.

Namanga lies at the junction of Tanzania and Kenya from a previous life, approximately seventy kilometers east lies Mount Kilimanjaro.

Because the Zanzibar Sultanate controls a large eastern part of Kenya, the East African colony avoided setting out from the eastern colony to investigate Kenya’s conditions to avoid trouble.

Instead, the expedition set off from relatively central northern highlands of the East African colony to explore the central and western parts of Kenya.

Henriette’s team only needs to continue north from Namanga for about 150 kilometers to reach the Nairobi region of previous Kenya’s capital.

Central and western Kenya are considered the essence of former Kenya, as evident on the administrative map of Kenya, the southwestern region has smaller administrative areas and more of them, while the eastern three provinces occupy half the area.

Kenya’s population is concentrated around the western highlands and the Great Lakes region, while other areas have relatively higher population only along the southeast coast such as Mombasa.

Compared to Tanzania, the Zanzibar Sultanate had much tighter control over Kenya, essentially controlling the eastern Kenya.

Thus, the colony aimed to take action from central and western Kenya, preparing first to seize land in Uganda and between the Zanzibar Sultanate.

Henriette, wearing a round hat made of banana leaves, leaned on a staff shaped like a cane, walking arduously against the blazing sun of the East African plateau with a team of dozens, observing changes in the surrounding terrain and noting landscape and features along the way.

”Captain, can we take a break? This rough road and scorching sun are unbearable!” a member suggested to Henriette.

Henriette wiped the sweat off his forehead with a sleeve, taking a deep breath.

He first checked the sky, then pulled out a compass to check their direction.

It was just past noon, the time when the sun was at its fiercest, baking the earth and radiating waves of heat.

He pulled out a rudimentary map he had been drawing from his backpack, crossing off Engong Mountain from the list.

Looking north from the expedition’s position revealed a hill now visible ahead, known as Engong Mountain by Arab merchants.

Henriette pointed toward Engong Mountain and said to his team, ”Hang in there a bit longer, today we need to reach the mountain’s foot, from this distance it’s not far, at most another ten miles, and we can rest there.”

Upon hearing the prospect of a break in ten miles, the team calmed down. For seasoned travelers, ten miles with ample energy was not a big deal, just enough to warm up.

So the squad continued onward, and as it approached an hour and a half later the sky started to darken, with the sun nearing the horizon.

The expedition finally reached the vicinity of Engong Mountain’s base, a well-suited camping environment with dense greenery and plentiful trees on the mountain.

The squad began setting up camp, and shortly several tents were erected.

Henriette sat inside a tent, pulling out notes taken along the way from his backpack to fill gaps and draw the map.

From Arusha to Namanga was mostly flat, with gentle terrain, but the climate grew drier moving north, yet greenery persisted, occasionally encountering some jungles.

This persisted until near Namanga’s Engong Mountain, where greenery increased significantly, with large forests on the mountain and more river flows, comparable to the Arusha region.

Henriette read his notes carefully, marking the sights along the way with a pencil on the map.

Henriette continued organizing until night fully fell, finally completing the map annotations, filled with dense text and symbols on its paper.

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”Captain Henriette, dinner is ready!” a teammate’s voice came from outside the tent.

The East African night fell quickly, and the team gathered wood to start a fire for warmth and to heat their food.

While Henriette worked, they had caught a caracal.

After skinning and cleaning, its weight with bones was just a few pounds, skewered with a shaved fork, seasoned with spices and salt, and roasted.

The expedition brought food, primarily rice grown in the colony, learning to cook rice from the Chinese. Actually, compared to rice, the German expedition members preferred bread.

Unfortunately, the colony’s conditions didn’t allow it yet, and the processes of kneading and baking were very complex, unsuitable for field conditions; mainly since the team were all men who couldn’t cook before.

Only simple cooking methods of grilling meat and making rice were picked up quickly.

Using an aluminum box, they placed rice and water, and threw it directly in the fire to steam, while the caracal meat sizzled and dripped oil over the embers, with wild vegetables picked from the wilderness making a decent meal.

The colony’s rice resembled the long-grain South Asian variety, the vegetables harvested and identified from local natives, and the caracal meat tasted good yet might have been less enjoyable due to dietary habits.

After eating, the team began to rest, with two men standing guard, taking shifts to prevent wild animal attacks on the camp.

In the dark, firelight danced in the clearing, insects chorusing, as if several pairs of glistening eyes in the nearby forest watched the expedition’s spot.

The guard kept the fire burning with fresh wood, holding their guns tight, staying vigilant to the surroundings.

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The next day, after a peaceful night, the team packed up their supplies and set off once more toward Kenya, with Engong Mountain marking the border to enter Kenya’s territory.