The Steamship that was carried by foot from Mombasa to Kisumu
ON a clear day on July 28 1929, the premier Lake Victoria steamer SS William Mackinnon sailed from the Kisumu Port, once known as near Mfangano Island. Accompanied by a flotilla of military boats, it was the last time that a ship that has become part of Kenya’s history was making its last voyage-and with full military honours.
As the sun shone brightly The Emetic-as SS William Mackinnon was sarcastically known-was deliberately listed to the left and slowly it went down to its grave after 30 years of service. While a chapter on steamship engineering had come to an end, the story of this ship has never, and will never die.
How the ship was transported on foot from Mombasa to Kisumu, a distance of more than 981 kilometres has always baffled many-yet no other ship that has sailed on the second largest lake in the world has ever achieved such acclaim. It is a story of determination, triumph, prowess and drama that can only be matched by the building of the Uganda railway.
Forget the much talked about Man-eater of Tsavo, the transportation of the The Emetic was possibly more lethargic than previously reported. Never before, and never again, did anyone try to transport such a huge cargo, estimated at 60 tonnes across the Nyika (plains), down and up the Rift Valley escarpment into the lakeshore!
When the British parliament in 1894 voted for the placing of two steamers on Lake Victoria,one of the shipbuilders, Sir George Mackenzie called the foreign office to tell them he had a ship that was suitable for the lake but they had no idea how the ship would make it to the middle of Africa.
First the ship would be transported to the lake ahead of the railway meaning it could not be transported along the rail.Historian, A.T Matson tells how the engineers had to cut down the ship into 3,000 loads, most not exceeding 30 kilogrammes for the overland transport!
Sold at $4,426, the ship was initially packed in boxes and could have stayed in Glasgow until the railway was completed because it was felt that the move would reduce the transport costs from $250 to $10 per ton.
But there was an urgency and a general feeling that Swahili porters would carry the load to the interior. It was a major mistake. In June 1896, some 111 years ago, two Scottish mechanics started the first caravan carrying the load for an island warehouse station at Mazeras. But they were shocked that most of the cargo had been abandoned on the route by porters who thought it was too heavy and bulky than they had bargained for.
For the first time, the building of the steamer looked like a distant dream and it took more time to look for the missing cargo and soldier on towards the plains where gangs of Indian coolies were laying down the railway. Although the first load managed to get past Maasai territory towards Uasin Gishu, the caravan was attacked here by the Nandi and 17 loads disappeared.
Records show that by this time it was clear that the steamer might never be assembled ,London decided to do the unthinkable: import camels and ox carts from Karachi to transport the remaining load. But then the Mazrui rebellion broke out and the store at Mazeras was destroyed together with its cargo. Up in Nandi Hills more cargo disappeared or porters left behind abandoned it in the bush.
Then infighting broke in London between transporters Smith Mackenzie-whose porters were now scattered with cargo in the interior-and Bousted and Ridley Company which suggested that they should have used the Tanzania (Tanganyika then) route. As London appointed a James Martin to supervise the transportation, he was sabotaged by Sclater who was surveying the Nairobi-Mombasa road and who wanted to showcase his workmanship. He took some of the imported animals for his project and forgot about the steamship project-either deliberately or to force them use his route. He also took the more than 1000 Kamba porters who had been recruited by Martin and gave them to the railway surveyors.
By the time Sclater was asked to take over the transportation of SS William Mackinnon most of the cargo was strewn across various railway stations while some were still in Mazeras. But in July 1897, even before he started his job he died.
Just as London decided to put things in order the Uganda mutiny of 1897 broke out and one of the casualties was William Scott the man who had come to assemble the ship. While it was initially thought that the shp would be launched at Port Victoria where a pier had already been built, it soon became clear that Kisumu would be the best place.
Two more engineers , McMillan and Brownlee, had also arrived in Kisumu together with Mr Richard Grant with 200 loads where they started assembling the parts. Grant left to go and fetch some of the cargo left in Nandi Escarpment but when he returned Mcmillan had died and Brownlee was incapacitated. He was not as lucky too and went down with malaria.
It was not until 1900 that another engineer Barton wright managed to have the remaining 2,469 loads carried over the Mau escarpment to the lake. But not everything reached still. One of the caravans across the desert was scattered by a storm that buried some of the cargo. These had to be identified, drawn again and replaced in a Mombasa workshop.
While most of the parts arrived by 1900, the timber and wood cut in Nandi Hills could not be retrieved due to the Nandi rebellion and new timber had to be sought from Uganda. On October 30,1900 SS William Mackinnon made the initial sail as the first steamship in Lake Victoria. It had caused bad blood between communities, become engineers, loaders and everyone.
On the previously uncharted waters The Emetic would get stranded in rocks until she was withdrawn in 1929. It was a great shame that a ship that had become part of Kenya’s early history was sank and went down with its story. In 1964 the statue of William Mackinnon was also removed form Mombasa and history was erased. But Lake Victoria has never forgotten SS William Mackinnon.