The Lunatic Express: An Entertainment in Imperialism"The Lunatic Express" is the saga of the turbulent international race for the mastery and development of an immense region of East Africa that all but visionaries thought worthless. It is the narrative of the building of the Mombasa-Nairobi-Lake Victoria Railway itself - the colossal six-year enterprise that was to cost £5,000,000 and countless lives, from derailments, collisions, disease, tribal raids and the assaults of wild animals. It is a diorama of an earlier Africa of slave and ivory empires, of sultans and tribal monarchs and the vast lands that they ruled. Above all, it is the story of the white intruders whose combination of avarice, honour and tenacious courage made them a breed apart. |
Contents
Damnosa Hereditas I | 1 |
Slow Freight to Armageddon | 289 |
The Bridge Over the River Tsavo | 316 |
Copyright | |
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Administration African Ainsworth Arabs arrived askaris Baganda Barghash became began Boyes Britain British brought Bunyoro bush called camp caravan carried chiefs Churchill coast Colonial Office colonists construction coolies Delamere Delamere's dhows early east Africa Eliot Empire England escarpment European expedition fact farm force Foreign Office Fransa German Government hand highlands hundred IBEA imperial Indian Jackson Kabaka Kavirondo Kenya Kikuyu Kikuyuland Kilindini Kirk Kisumu labor Laibon Lake Lake Victoria land later least less lion Lugard Mackay Mackinnon man-eaters Masai Meinertzhagen Mengo ment miles missionaries Mombasa Mount Kenya Muslims Mutesa Mwanga Nairobi Nandi native never night Nile once party Patterson Peters porters Preston Protectorate rail railhead railway railway's region rifle Rift Valley route seemed settlers Seyyid slave station Sudanese Sultan Swahili tent Thomson tion took tracks trade train treaty tribal tribe troops Tsavo Uganda Uganda Railway Wakamba Whitehouse wrote Zanzibar