136 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
sage of my stretcher, enlisting the services of a chief 
with his people to cut a road in from the shambas 
to meet our porters who were working outward. 
One day when I was convalescing, Bill called on a 
porter to perform some service about my tent. The 
porter refused tocome. Bill went out to “interview” 
him. The porter was twice as large as Bill—there 
was a little scuffle, and Bill came right back and did 
the work himself. Then he went over to the doctor’s 
tent and conducted him out to where he had left the 
porter. It took the doctor a half hour to bring the 
porter to. Then the other porters came up in a body 
and said that Bill must go or they would all go. I 
told them that the first of their number who com- 
plained of Bill or refused to do his bidding would get 
“twenty-five.” The average black boy would have 
taken advantage of the situation created by these 
victories—not so with Bill. After that, whenever he 
had occasion to pass an order to a porter, he always 
did it through the headman. 
Perhaps I should explain at this point just what 
the normal personnel of a safari in British East Africa 
is. First, there is the headman, who is supposed to 
be in charge of the whole show, excepting the gun- 
bearers and tent boys, who are the personal servants 
and under the immediate direction of their masters. 
The askaris are soldiers who are armed and whose 
duties consist of the guarding of the camp at night 
and looking after the porters on the march. There is 
one askari to from ten to twenty porters. The cook 
and his assistant or assistants, the number of whom is 
