GLIMPSES OF EAST AFRICA AND ZANZIBAR 



repulsion at touching them, nor could I with any 

 pleasure stick pins into them. 



To show how quaintly one's ''boys" sometimes 

 behave, here is an instance. I bought, with Baruku's 

 advice, twelve eggs of a man who came to our door, 

 of which ten were bad. At dinner, just before the 

 savoury, he and Ali kept coming in, and they stood 

 with the eggs dripping on to our matting, to show 

 me silently they were bad. A few nights later I 

 had bought a turnip ; it was not sufficiently boiled, 

 so I sent it out. Baruku then appeared in his 

 kitchen clothes, with a huge stick in the one hand 

 and the vegetable in the other, and stood silently 

 looking at me, with eyes full of reproachful inquiry, 

 and Ali standing in attendance behind. 



Above all things Ali loved cleaning knives ; at 

 the rate he went I soon found we should have no 

 knives left. He cleaned them always just before 

 meals, directly afterwards, and any other time 

 when he felt inclined to sit and lazily do something 

 in the sunshine. 



My first introduction to the tick fever, I was 

 afterwards to see so much of, was most tragic ; Ali 

 rushed in when we were at lunch one day to say 

 Luke, one of the Irish terriers, was dead ! It was 

 a great shock, as I did not understand that he was 

 ill. He had been languid for some days, and I had 

 had to carry him when he appeared tired out walk- 

 ing. A few days later Matthew and Mark sickened, 



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