446 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



could talk freely with them. These black soldiers be- 

 haved excellently, and the attitude, both toward them and 

 toward us, of the natives in the various villages we came 

 across was totally incompatible with any theory that these 

 natives had suffered from any maltreatment; they behaved 

 just like the natives in British territory. There had to be 

 the usual parleys with the chiefs of the villages to obtain 

 food for the soldiers (we carried the posho for our own 

 men), and ample payment was given for what was brought 

 in; and in the only two cases where the natives thought 

 themselves aggrieved by the soldiers, they at once brought 

 the matter before us. One soldier had taken a big gourd 

 of water when very thirsty; another, a knife from a man 

 who was misbehaving himself. On careful inquiry, and 

 delivering judgment in the spirit of Solomon, we decided 

 that both soldiers had been justified by the provocation 

 received; but as we were dealing with the misdeeds of 

 mere big children, we gave the gourd back to its owner 

 with a reprimand for having refused the water, and per- 

 mitted the owner of the knife, whose offence had been 

 more serious, to ransom his property by bringing in a 

 chicken to the soldier who had it. 



The natives lived in the usual pointed beehive huts in 

 unfenced villages, with shambas lying about them; and 

 they kept goats, chickens, and a few cattle. Our perma- 

 nent camp was near such a village. It was interesting 

 to pass through it at sunrise or sunset, when starting on or 

 returning from a hunt. The hard, bare earth was swept 

 clean. The doors in the low mud walls of the huts were 

 but a couple of feet high and had to be entered on all-fours; 

 black pickaninnies scuttled into them in wild alarm as we 



