who has been described in historical literature as a "continual drunk", arrived at Mumias on 20 March 1895 and soon got into partnership with Dick, a "choleric" trader who had set up trading posts from the coast to Lake Victoria. Their intention was to independently establish domination and a trade monopoly with the Nandi. Their escapade, which they began on 23 June 1895 by organizing two caravans, started off poorly. Dick had three rifles taken by the Kilekwa while one of West's men was murdered. Dick had two Nandi warriors who had surrendered whipped and later bound and drowned. A Nandi reconnaissance party was also fired upon by Dick and dispersed after losing one warrior. While Dick was busy antagonizing the Nandi, West had pitched his camp two hours from the nearest Nandi houses and from here he unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate for ivory that he sought upon his first contact with the Nandi. Although warned of the Nandi, West persisted in his attempts to negotiate by treating the Nandi delegates well. His efforts were repaid at 2:00AM on the morning of 16 July 1895 when the camp was rushed by Nandi warriors and all but eight of the expedition were killed without a shot being fired. West's last words were reported as, "Give me my gun." Military operations The East Africa Protectorate, Foreign Office, and missionary societies administrations reacted to West's death by organizing military expeditions against the Nand in 1895 and 1897. The first expedition in 1895 consisted of 400 askari soldiers led by European officers and armed with rifles and a Maxim machine gun. The second expedition in 1897 included 500 askari soldiers with the same armaments as before. These expeditions were able to inflict sporadic losses upon Nandi warriors, burning several Nandi villages and capturing of hundreds of livestock, but proved unable to fully suppress Nandi resistance. 1900 - Third invasion Background For the Nandi, the closing decade of the nineteenth century opened with the execution of Kimnyole on a variety of charges followed by a struggle for power between his sons. The Orkoinotet had by now gained prominence as an institution and this struggle for power split the society into factions, and conflict broke out though did not extend to full-fledge civil war. This period also saw a deepening of the 1890s epizootics crisis and the wider mutai it had generated. British accounts of the