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 Ainsworth Arabs army arrived Baganda Barghash became Boyes Britain British brought Bunyoro called camp caravan carried chiefs coast Colonial colonists Company construction coolies Delamere Delamere's despite dhows early east Africa Eliot Emin Emin Pasha Empire England escarpment European expedition fact farm force Foreign Office Fransa German Government hand highlands hundred IBEA imperial Indian Jackson journey Kabaka Kampala Kenya Kikuyu Kikuyuland Kilindini Kirk Kisumu labor Lake Lake Victoria Lamu land later least less lion Lugard Mackay Mackinnon man-eaters Masai Meinertzhagen Mengo ment miles mission missionaries Mombasa months Muslims Mutesa Mwanga Nairobi Nandi never night Nile once party Patterson Peters porters Preston Protectorate rail railhead railway region rifle Rift Valley Rosebery route seemed settlers Seyyid slave Stanley Sudanese Sultan Swahili Taru Thomson tion told took tracks trade treaty tribe troops Tsavo Uganda Uganda Railway Wakamba Whitehouse wrote Zanzibar Zinj