48 THE LAND OF THE LION 
carry one) he reduced the toughest kongoni to something 
edible, and before the trip was over he was equal to roasting 
quite appetizingly a partridge or duck. 
He had to be outfitted, of course, 7. e., provided with 
khaki coat, trousers and boots, for the rags he stood up 
in were not decent. Amid all the dire misfortunes that had 
overtaken him since he was with me, he had managed, 
he told me with evident pride, to retain three hats, and he 
produced them. ‘Two were like his trousers, and were 
hats only by courtesy. But the third was a brand-new 
blazing scarlet tarbushe. His belongings he said had been 
stolen the same time as his chits, and he saved his hats 
from the fate of his clothes by wearing them night and day. 
Peter with two black hats, and the tarbushe, of course, 
on top, was a sight not easily forgotten. As he marched 
along, a kettle usually in each hand, the flaming red top 
hamper would tip rakishly first to one side then to the 
other. When we got among game, I|I suppose to make 
assurance doubly sure, and to save its loved colour from 
the drenching rains of the wet season, which we were then 
encountering, he actually extemporized a fourth and most 
serviceable head covering of raw kongoni skin, which he 
drew down over all his precious headgear. The last was 
all you saw on his head till the end of the trip, when oily, 
but otherwise good as new, the temporary eclipsed tar- 
boushe shone forth in tarnished splendour, to celebrate 
his return to Nairobi and civilization. 
I began with the headman, the director and guide of 
my little company. I have come now to its tail — the toto 
— its apprentice boy, not entered on your list of men. 
You have no knowledge of his existence till some day, 
from somewhere, he bobs up before you, just a toto. It 
may be you see him first, though this is unlikely, wedged 
in among the legs of a dozen or fifteen men, in one of the 
already dreadfully crowded third class compartments 
