t-HAP. XVI THE HEROES OF AFRICAN EXPLORATION 315 



Zanzibar! knows he cannot understand everything, so he does 

 not attempt to, and the ways of Europeans no more surprise him 

 than does the sunset. But failure to understand the European 

 does not lessen his sense of obedience. My own men worked 

 for me right loyally, though they never understood my object. 

 At first they nicknamed me " Dudu," which may be interpreted 

 as "bugs and beetles," a name -finally replaced by that of 

 " Mpokwa " or " bulging pockets," The fact that the men 

 sometimes wondered at my object was shown when, in the 

 Kikuyu country, one of them was dangerously ill — we 

 thought dying. One night he seemed anxious to ask me 

 something, though he hesitated to speak about it. I went 

 away, but a porter soon recalled me to the sick man. Then, 

 with a great effort, he asked me to promise that, if he died, I 

 would not put his head in a box and take it home with me, 

 like the skulls I had dug up at Tzavo. 



From the relief my promise gave, not only to him, but to 

 others, I could see that many of the men had felt that I 

 should not hesitate to add their skulls to my collection, if they 

 died on the march. But this had not prevented them from risking 

 their lives time after time in my service ; and when the fare- 

 wells came at Mombasa, I felt that the Zanzibari are the real 

 heroes of African exploration. They do their work without 

 the stimulus of the incentive of exploration ; they have no share 

 in the interest of the scientific problems ; they enjoy none of 

 the credit of success. They only receive their scanty allowance 

 of a pound and a half of grain a day as food when on the 

 march, and a miserable pittance of ten rupees a month as pay 

 on their return. Yet for these they have to endure hardships 

 and privations, compared with which those of their European 

 master, with his comfortable tent and store of tinned pro- 

 visions, are for the most part trivial inconveniences. The very 

 highest success in life they can hope for is only promotion to 

 the rank of headman. Only a small minority can ever obtain 

 the greater dignity and higher responsibilities of this position. 

 For the majority, if they escape the natives, who are ever ready 

 to murder a lonely porter for the sake of his load, and never 

 fall ill during a period of double marches and half rations on 

 one of the cold, inland plateaux, there remains but the oblivion 

 of an early and unhonoured grave. 



