SEEKING ROMANTIC ADVENTURES. 



77 



He was just a toto, hired by the aforesaid five or six to do their little 

 jobs around camp, carry water, cook food, and carry at least a part 

 of their potio. Had he a father? No. A mother? Doubtful. 

 Generally these little black mites are orphans. 



Many such there are, alas ! They hang round government sta- 

 tions, claiming no one, recognized by none. In some sore strait 

 some helpless woman laid him at a stranger's hut door, to live or 



HOUSE BUILDING IN AFRICA. 



die as it might be. Many of the totos show too plainly traces of that 

 early disaster. Rickety, consumptive, half-starved atoms of human- 

 ity, who yet face with an African's quite wonderful cheeriness the 

 chances of safari life, because it offers them plentiful food and 

 some sort of a home. Others there are of them, of course, who 

 are in a far better condition, whose mothers have died, and who 

 come along with their fathers. 



