CHAP. XVI FIRST IMPRESSIONS 299 



Christian alike — the inhabitants of the Mombasa district are 

 a thoroughly bad lot. It is hopeless to win them by kindness, 

 or infuse a spirit of discipline by sternness. They are liars, 

 cowards, thieves, and drunkards." ^ 



My first experience of Zanzibari porters was unfavourable. 

 At Mkonumbi several were engaged for us, and failed hope- 

 lessly. They could not carry the regulation loads ; they 

 showed no knowledge of camp ways ; they proved sullen and 

 lazy. However, these were only a scratch lot — mostly freed 

 slaves, who had been tempted from ordinary agricultural 

 labour by the prospect of high wages and little work. After 

 they had been discharged, I saw no more of Zanzibari, until 

 our eighty porters under Omari came to the camp at Ngatana. 

 Their attitude throughout was amusing rather than pleasant. 

 They made no attempt to conceal their contempt for the 

 Abyssinians and Somali, and I think we also came in for a 

 share of this feeling. Whenever the porters arrived in camp 

 from Witu with a fresh cargo of stores, the Abyssinians would 

 at once drop their loads and fall exhausted beside them ; the 

 Zanzibari, on the other hand, simply to show their contempt 

 for such feebleness, would dance and sing, and race round the 

 camp with their loads on their heads, until they were ordered 

 to stack them. The feeling of the Zanzibari towards the 

 Somali was more definitely hostile ; jealousy of the higher pay 

 and privileges, which they thought the Somali did not deserve, 

 added bitterness to their contempt. In their good - natured 

 way the Zanzibari were generally ready to help the Abyssinians 

 to make themselves comfortable in camp ; but they seemed to 

 gloat over the miseries which the Somali endured, owing to 

 their ignorance of the camp dodges, in which they themselves 

 were experts. The result was that in time the hatred between 

 the two classes of men became so intense that, to avoid 

 quarrels, the Zanzibari camp had to be pitched a ie\N hundred 

 yards from that of the Somali, and the men were kept as 

 much separate as possible. 



In other ways, however, the Zanzibari gave us no trouble. 

 When they coveted Pokomo pumpkins, they got them for the 

 asking from their friends the villagers, or they stole them so 

 cleverly that the Somali had the blame. They never dis- 



1 The Kilima-Njaro Expedition (London, 1886), p. 43. 



