154 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES. 



We seated ourselves. 



" Fall in ! " we yelled. 



About half the crowd fell into rough lines. The 

 rest drew slightly to one side. Nobody stopped 

 talking for a single instant. 



We arose and tackled our job. The first part 

 of it was to segregate the applicants into their 

 different tribes. 



" Monumwezi hapa ! " we yelled ; and the 

 command was repeated and repeated again by 

 the headman, by his four personal assistants, by 

 a half-dozen lesser headmen. Slowly the Mon- 

 umwezi drew aside. We impressed on them em- 

 phatically they must stay thus, and went after, 

 in turn, the Baganda, the Wakamba, the Swahilis, 

 the Kavirondo, the Kikuyu. When we had them 

 grouped, we went over them individually. We 

 punched their chests, we ran over all their joints, 

 we examined their feet, we felt their muscles. 

 Our victims stood rigidly at inspection, but their 

 numerous friends surrounded us closely, urging 

 the claims of the man to our notice. It was 

 rather confusing, but we tried to go at it as 

 though we were alone in a wilderness. If the 

 man passed muster we motioned him to a rapidly 

 growing group. 



Wlien we had finished we had about sixty men 



