154 UNDER THE AFRICAN SUN 



and I was told, that Haggenas deserted to join the mutineers. 

 The desertion cost his Hfe ; for the mutineers mistook his in- 

 tention, and shot him dead, before he had time to explain. 

 I have only once had a Soudanese as a " boy " ; he was taken 

 on as an extra hand, as I had four servants already. A 

 native officer at ]\Iasindi brought him to me with the words, 

 that this was the best lad in the settlement. I know I am rather 

 liable to be influenced by first impressions, and this lad's 

 appearance was certainly not prepossessing. He appeared 

 before me naked, with the exception of the tiniest imaginable 

 loin-cloth, he also habitually screwed up his eyes, imparting to 

 his face a most sinister expression. 



Mentally I put him down as a first-rate rogue ; but in 

 presence of the native ofhcer's eulogies, and unwilling to con- 

 demn a lad in destitute circumstances merely upon personal 

 prejudice at first sight, I admitted, though with considerable 

 hesitation, this treasure to my household. Of course I had to 

 issue to him at once a sufficient amount of cloth to dress 

 himself properly. Scarcely had he entered my service, when 

 I missed my penknife, and as I had never lost anything with 

 the other servants, I could not help suspecting the new-comer. 

 Living in bachelor style, one is necessarily entirely at the mercy 

 of one's servants in these distant regions. I may have been 

 hitherto particularly fortunate ; but 1 have scarcely ever lost 

 anything through the dishonesty of a " boy," though I have 

 lost more than one load owing to a dishonest porter absconding 

 with it on the journey. 



j\Iy companion at Masindi had a Soudanese servant whom 

 he had to send to prison for selling his socks. Stolen socks 

 are difficult to dispose of, because natives go barefoot ; but 

 knives of every description are in great demand. What more I 

 might have lost I do not know, if just then I had not had to go 

 to Fovira, where my new acquisition was recognised by some 

 Swahili traders. I now found out, that this broth of a boy had 

 just completed a term of imprisonment for malicious arson, by 

 which these very traders had lost heavily. Whether it was this 

 discovery, or the strict watch I kept upon his movements, but 

 my Soudanese lad suddenly requested to join his father who, it 

 appears, was one of the Fovira garrison. I promptly gratified 

 the filial request by parting with the boy on the spot, although 

 he had got a new suit of clothing out of me but a couple of days 



