In Wildest Africa -^ 



difficult it is to deal with them, however, may be gathered 

 from the following incident which I find recorded in 

 my diary. 



On the occasion of my last journey, a black soldier, 

 an Askari, had been told off to attach himself for a time 

 to my caravan. Presently I had to send him back to 

 the military station at Kilimanjaro with a message. A 

 number of my followers accompanied him, partly to fetch 

 goods, etc., from my main camp, partly on various other 

 missions that had to be attended to before we advanced 

 farther into the velt. The Askari was provided, as usual, 

 with a certain number of cartridges. When my men 

 returned, a considerable time afterwards, I discovered quite 

 accidentally that one of them bore marks on his body of 

 having been brutally lashed with a whip. His back was 

 covered with scars and open wounds. After the long- 

 suffering manner of his kind, he had said nothing to me 

 about it until his condition was revealed to me by chance — 

 for, as he was only one of the hundred and fifty attached 

 to my expedition, I might never have noticed it. It 

 transpired that not long after he had set out the Askari, 

 against orders, had shot big game and, among other 

 animals, had bagged a giraffe, whose head — a valuable 

 trophy — he had forced my bearers to carry for him to the 

 fort. The particular bearer in question had quite rightly 

 refused, whereupon the Askari had thrashed him most 

 barbarously with a hippopotamus-hide, whip — a sjambok. 

 I need hardly say that he was suitably punished for this 

 when I lodged a formal complaint against him. Had it 

 not been for his ill-treatment of my bearer, however, I 



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