C.’s man was an educated Coast Swahili named Abba Ali.  This individual was very smart.  He wore a neatly-trimmed Vandyke beard, a flannel boating hat, smart tailored khakis, and carried a rattan cane.  He was alert, quick, and intelligent.  His position was midway between that of personal boy and headman.

Of the rank and file we began with twenty-nine.  Two changed their minds before we were fairly started, and departed in the night.  There was no time to get regular porters; but fortunately a Kikuyu chief detailed two wild savages from his tribe to act as carriers.  These two children of nature drifted in with pleasant smiles and little else save knick-knacks.  From our supplies we gave them two thin jerseys, reaching nearly to the knees.  Next day they appeared with broad tucks sewed around the middle!  They looked like “My Mama didn’t use wool soap.”  We then gave it up, and left them free and untrammelled.

They differed radically.  One was past the first enthusiasms and vanities of youth.  He was small, unobtrusive, unornamented.  He had no possessions save the jersey, the water-bottle, and the blanket we ourselves supplied.  The blanket he crossed bandolier fashion on one shoulder.  It hung down behind like a tasselled sash.  His face was little and wizened and old.  He was quiet and uncomplaining, and the “easy mark” for all the rest.  We had constantly to be interfering to save him from imposition as to too heavy loads, too many jobs, and the like.  Nearing the close of the long expedition, when our loads were lighter and fewer, one day C. spoke up.

“I’m going to give the old man a good time,” said he.  “I doubt if he’s ever had one before, or if he ever will again.  He’s that sort of a meek damnfool.”

So it was decreed that Kimau[20] should carry nothing for the rest of the trip, was to do no more work, was to have all he wanted to eat.  It was a treat to see him.  He accepted these things without surprise, without spoken thanks; just as he would have accepted an increased supply of work and kicks.  Before his little fire he squatted all day, gazing vacantly off into space, or gnawing on a piece of the meat he always kept roasting on sticks.  He spoke to no one; he never smiled or displayed any obvious signs of enjoyment; but from him radiated a feeling of deep content.

His companion savage was a young blood, and still affected by the vanities of life.  His hair he wore in short tight curls, resembling the rope hair of a French poodle, liberally anointed with castor-oil and coloured with red-paint clay.  His body, too, was turned to bronze by the same method, so that he looked like a beautiful smooth metal statue come to life.  To set this quality off he wore glittering collars, bracelets, and ear ornaments of polished copper and brass.  When he joined us his sole costume was a negligent two-foot strip of cotton cloth.  After he had received his official jersey, he carefully