TREK AND CAMP. 1 95 



in a heap with the help of a native guide who was with me, and who belonged to 

 the same tribe as the thieves ; then when the porters came up I made them pass 

 by at a distance so that they could not lay hands upon anything. The native guide 

 assured me that he knew the people well and that there were relations of his in 

 the village, so I sent him and the old man off into it to say that I had all the 

 weapons, and that these could be had back as soon as flour was brought for my 

 porters in exchange for the meat that had been stolen. Presently the chief appeared 

 with a very meagre supply of flour, and I gave him back the weapons and also 

 gave him a present. 



He then complained that the contents of a small skin bag he had left hanging 

 on a tree had been stolen, and that they consisted of an axe-head and some rupees. 

 As the local guide was the only person who had been near the place besides myself, 

 I knew that if anything had been stolen it must have been taken by him. On 

 being searched, although he protested loudly that he would never dream of robbing 

 his brothers, an axe-head was found in his bag of food. No rupees were forth- 

 coming, and if there ever had been any he must have buried them at once. 

 However, it was most unlikely that any native from the part I was in would be in 

 possession of money, as no money was in that country, nor were there any 

 likely means of obtaining it. Most probably, according to true native fashion, the 

 old chief had invented the rupees so as to rub in the magnitude of his loss. 



Having caught a native of the country robbing his fellows in this manner, it 

 is a rather difficult matter to know how to deal with him ; for if you punish him 

 there and then, you are punishing one of the tribe whose fears you are anxious 

 to allay, whilst if you let the fellow go, he returns to his own village, where his 

 version of the story will be believed. If he had robbed a member of his own 

 particular village the matter would be simple, for then he could be handed over 

 to his own chief to be dealt with according to local customs. 



If you hand him over to the chief of the other village, for all you know there 

 may be hostility between the two villages, in which case directly you trek off the 

 man will probably be murdered. 



But I must return to the trek with porters. All loads which remain the same 

 throughout the journey, such as tent, cooking-pots, table, and bed, etc., should have 

 men selected for them whose special duties should not be changed. When every 

 man knows beforehand what constitutes his load it facilitates getting away quickly 

 in the morning, for each then knows exactly how to do up his particular load and 

 exactly what to do with it and where to put it when he gets into camp. At the first 

 start off on trek there is a lengthy sorting and arranging of loads, which takes 



