30 UNDER THE AFRICAN SUN 



wise it call." Having done the marketing, the cook not only 

 enjoyed otinm cum dignitatc for the rest of the day, but varied 

 the monotony of his existence by getting drunk. It is needless 

 to say that the usual evolution of cook's mate into cook fol- 

 lowed the discovery. 



There does not seem to be any privia facie reason why 

 cooks should be drunkards, but it is unfortunately the rule and 

 not the exception that they take a little more than is good for 

 them. My cook succeeded his predecessor in office very much 

 in the same way, as had happened in the judge's household ; 

 for the expensive one I had brought with me from Mombasa 

 turned out to be a drunkard, and as the Soudanese whisky 

 at Kampala proved too great a temptation to him, it led to his 

 absenting himself without leave for three days on a drinking 

 bout. When " Musa" reappeared, he found " Hamadi Marzuk," 

 the cook's mate, installed permanently as cook. 



This brings to my mind a similar episode which happened 

 to two ladies on a visit to the Seychelles Islands. Their cook, 

 a liberated slave, delivered originally from a slave-dhow by a 

 British man-of-war, used to absent himself frequently for a 

 day or so without leave. The kind-hearted ladies, disposed to 

 be doubly kind to one formerly a slave, gently remonstrated, 

 whereupon the man indignantly asked them whether they 

 thought they had to deal with a slave, and promptly took an 

 extra long French leave. When at last he thought fit to re- 

 appear, he found some one else installed as cook. A prompt 

 but unsuccessful appeal by him to the magistrate for restoration 

 of what he considered acquired rights failed. The magisterial 

 decision still further embittered his feelings against everything 

 British, — a nation which, according to his view, professes to pity 

 and liberate the poor slaves, and then actually refuses to let 

 them leave off work when and where they like, or take a holi- 

 day or two just when the fancy seizes them to enjoy one. 



The deeply grafted slave-nature of the negro cannot be 

 straight off eradicated and altered, any more than a cart-horse 

 can be made into a racehorse by simply taking it out of the 

 shafts and putting a light saddle on its back. 



Native cooks, unless prohibited to do so, find it most con- 

 venient to light their fire at the foot of the finest tree available, 

 as a shelter against the wind. The result is that in course of 

 time a big hole is burnt into the tree itself, and the tree is 



