300 THE ZANZIBARI 



tressed us by dying, and were not even seriously ill. In the 

 crowd of Somali and Abyssinians which came twice daily to 

 the dispensary hut, when Mackinnon was " at home " to invalids, 

 not a Zanzibari was to be seen, unless one were there for the 

 fun of jeering at the feeble folk. The Zanzibari, in fact, did 

 their work in a quiet, business-like way without fuss or noise. 

 Moreover, they entertained us greatly by coming over to our 

 camp to sing and tell funny stories. 



But in spite of all this we did not like them. They 

 assumed an air of bumptious arrogance that was not pleasing. 

 It is not exactly gratifying to feel that your native servants 

 despise you, as ours manifestly did. We felt we could not 

 depend upon our men if we quarrelled with their headman. 

 We knew they used to go to Omari, saying, " This is not a 

 safari ! Why should we waste our time here any more. Let 

 us beat our drum and go ! " Had we had any unpleasantness 

 with Omari, they would have beaten their drum and gone. 

 Thus a certain distrust was added to our consciousness of their 

 aggressive self-assertion. 



But when once we had crossed the Tana and begun our 

 march, the Zanzibari had to work, and then everything was 

 changed. They showed themselves adepts at camp ways, and 

 proved most willing workers. When a halt was called, camp 

 was pitched speedily and without confusion. Tents were up, 

 water and wood brought, fires lighted, and cooking done, as if 

 by magic. There was none of the old trouble to make the 

 men perform these tasks, and do the other odd jobs required to 

 render camp comfortable and orderly. The Somali had to be 

 told everything, and only obeyed slowly and sullenly. Each 

 Zanzibari, on the other hand, knew his special duty, and hast- 

 ened to do it with willing obedience. We often had a forcible 

 illustration of the difference in their demeanour, when we were 

 trying to sleep at night after a hard day's work. The noise in 

 our Somali camp was maddening, especially when we were ill 

 with fever ; Benett-Stanford would go out and order the men 

 to be quiet. " We Englishmen," he would say, " work all day 

 and try to sleep at night ; but you Somali sleep all day, and 

 then chow, chow, chow all night." The Somali would laugh 

 and be quiet for three minutes, and then the hubbub would 

 begin again. If the Zanzibari were too noisy we had only 



