January 12, 1867.
Namanga, a small place on the border between Kenya and Tanzania.
An expedition was advancing north through Namanga. Its captain was Henriette, a self-taught explorer from the German territories.
Since childhood, Henriette had loved listening to the adventure stories told by the elders in his hometown. He longed to roam the world like the protagonists in those tales, so once he grew up, he had dreamed of adventuring across the globe in search of that thrill and novelty.
Henriette chose Africa as his first stop, because Africa was the most mysterious place in Europe at the time. Unfortunately, he did not have a penny in his pocket and could not afford a ticket to Africa.
Fortunately, Ernst had been recruiting people in the German territories to blaze trails for the East African colony, and Henriette signed up.
Like Captain Yalman, Henriette had been among the earliest members of the East African colony's mercenary corps.
Henriette had set out with the mercenary corps from the Baltic Sea, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean, and arrived in East Africa.
When they had first arrived, the East African colony's mercenary corps had known little about the conditions in the East African interior. They needed to survey the inland environment, so they formed several expeditions to investigate East Africa's interior. These expeditions were staffed by volunteers selected from among the colony's original two thousand-plus Germans.
As the first person to volunteer for an expedition, Henriette had been appointed captain of a small team. Leading an expedition of more than a dozen men, he had explored westward all the way to the vicinity of Lake Tanganyika.
Henriette was once again leading this exploration of Kenya, surveying East Africa's geography. This time, they were heading north from the East African colony