146 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
We would often sit and watch him, and we had no 
difficulty in following his story, though we understood, 
at that time, no Swahili at all. He might perhaps be 
describing to his fellows some white man. He would 
describe his dress in detail—his tie, his shirt, his cuffs 
—and we were usually able to recognize the indi- 
vidual from the pantomime of his description. These 
stories were sometimes made up from the day’s ex- 
perience. For instance, it might be that during the 
day I had had some interesting experience or adven- 
ture the story of which Alli had gathered from the 
gun boys on their return, and when the work was 
finished in the evening Alli would give it to his au- 
dience in full detail—probably with some additions 
that furnished intense interest—often eliciting loud 
applause. 
One time we had been on an elephant trail a day 
and ahalf. I lay beneath a tree, “all in” with spiril- 
lum fever, and felt that I could go no farther that 
day;so I ordered Billtomake camp. Iwas awakened 
from a doze by Bill, and when I asked him if my tent 
was ready he replied that it was not but that the 
hammock was. He had improvised a hammock which 
he ordered me to get into. He had doubled up the 
loads of the few porters so that four were released to 
carry me. Bill made the porters trot the ten miles 
to camp. It was nearly a month before Bill and I 
had recovered sufficiently to take up the elephant 
trails again. 
Another time I was down with black-water fever in 
the Nairobi hospital. I had been booked to “‘go 
