THE USES OF AN UMBRELLA 213 



from a neighbouring shamba. I attacked them 

 furiously with my umbrella, and they picked up 

 their loads and fled precipitately, though any single 

 one of them could easily have made a hole in me 

 with his spear, and the rest would have had great 

 pleasure, but very little satisfaction, in picking my 

 bones. It was a ' regrettable incident,' because my 

 weapon was disabled by coming into violent contact 

 with a black head, and I have been unable to 

 boast of having crossed Africa armed only with an 

 umbrella. 



It is their ungovernable greed more than any- 

 thing else which gets them into trouble ; offers of 

 increased pay will not rouse them to energy, but 

 they will march all day long if there is a prospect of 

 eating as much as they can at the end of it. On 

 one occasion in the Mfumbiro district our porters, 

 who had distinguished themselves by loafing along 

 on the previous day, took wings to themselves and 

 went an immense distance, quite double an ordinary 

 day's journey, and mostly in the wrong direction. 

 They might have made a short march to a place 

 where there was a little cultivation, but they pre- 

 ferred to go miles out of their way — and by so 

 doing increased the next day's journey, too — in 

 order to indulge in an orgy of beans and bananas. 

 I hit upon a very salutary punishment for that little 

 escapade by depriving the ' headman ' of his spear 

 (a gross indignity), and cutting it in two in his 

 presence ; the shaft made me a new handle for my 



