A ZANZIBAR! WIT 313 



expedition, the leader of which gives him a woefully bad char- 

 acter. But I found him so useful that I made him my head 

 Askari, and he was mainly responsible for the trade goods. 

 He was such an expert thief himself, that he was up to all the 

 dodges ; and as he knew that if anything were stolen he 

 would be suspected, he durst not steal himself Thus practi- 

 cally nothing was taken. He was a confirmed liar, as a rule 

 very indolent, and had very little control over the men. He 

 was, moreover, liable to fits of murderous passion, in which he 

 would draw his knife and try to slay the object of his wrath. 

 So Mwini's character was not a perfect one, and I have to 

 admit he had his failings. But, in spite of all, he was indis- 

 pensable to me. Though a thief, he was not a kleptomaniac. 

 When roused, his capacity for work was colossal. His sight 

 was marvellously keen, and his knowledge of animals and their 

 ways was very intimate. He could track a wounded antelope 

 or follow up an obscure trail with unerring instinct, and with- 

 out apparent effort. His courage was superb. But his main 

 virtue lay in his rollicking good - humour. When the men 

 were almost too weary and exhausted to drag themselves 

 along in some double march across difficult country, and we 

 were all gloomy, depressed, and surly, Mwini's spirits would 

 rise to their highest. I would call him to the front, and soon 

 some lively marching song would break from him, cheering 

 our hearts in spite of ourselves, until we were all joining in 

 the chorus, or shouting back the refrain. Unconsciously our 

 pace would quicken, and as if by magic " the crooked would 

 be made straight and the rough places plain." If we had to 

 camp out in the plains or spend the night in some dismal 

 swamp, crouching fireless and foodless in the pelting rain, 

 Mwini would vary his songs with stories of the strange things 

 he had seen and heard. At first the men would be angry and 

 tell him to stop. Huddled up under the open fly of the tent, 

 which I would share with them on such occasions, I have 

 watched them, taking in sullen despair a malicious pleasure in 

 the contemplation of their own sufferings, looking as if sheer 

 misery were the only thing that rendered life possible, and 

 scowling at Mwini's ribald irreverence to their solemn dignity 

 of martyrdom. But one by one they would thaw to his jokes, 

 till the whole camp was infected, and the danger of an epidemic 



