When I read The Ivory Raiders, I was intrigued by the plot of the story, the intention of the author, Major Henry A. Rayne, to document the intricate process of political assignment and colonial intervention in the “lawless chaos” of wild African landscape and make it accessible to European readers. The encounter transpired on the banks of the Turkwell River in northern Kenya Colony, bordering the western shores of Lake Rudolf (Lake Turkana), where Rayne triumphantly captured the fugitive Mahomadi bin Abdullah, an Arab from Muscat, for engaging in illicit ivory trade. The narrative plot into which the colonial encounter cast itself surfaces in the first 25 pages of the book, and the story of Major Rayne's encounter with Mahomadi bin Abdullah is fascinating.