178 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
a bad plan to allow one porter to every four or five askaris, to 
carry their food, sleeping mats, &c. This would save a good deal 
of grumbling and discontent amongst the porters, as it would 
prevent the askaris from taking advantage of them by piling 
their private kits and food on to the load of a porter already 
heavily laden. By right, askaris should carry their own kits, but 
in a shooting trip, when perhaps the sportsman wishes to get 
as far and do as much as he can in a given time, it is well to 
avoid all causes of friction amongst the men as much as pos- 
sible by a little judicious leniency of this kind. The pay of 
an askari is 12 rupees per month, and his posho is half as 
much again as a porter’s—that is, one and a half ‘ kibaba’ or its 
equivalent. On the coast their posho is 12 pice, 
The porters (‘ pagazi’), of whom there are several grades, 
good, bad and indifferent, although they often exasperate their 
master even to the verge of desperation, are, as a rule, first- 
rate fellows. A porter will do, considering his pay and food, what 
few other men, if any, will or cando. Heis naturally cheerful 
and easily pleased, but no one can be more sulky and obstinate. 
Provided, however, that his stomach is kept full, it is possible 
to do almost anything with him. On the march—and a march 
varies considerably, from six to eighteen miles, and sometimes 
more—the porter will carry, besides his regulation load of 65 
lbs., his sleeping-mat, with ten days’ posho on the top of it, a 
Snider carbine, and belt with ten rounds of ammunition, and — 
also his water calabash (‘mbuyu’). At the end of the march it 
is his duty to cut down thorn-trees and bushes, and drag them 
into camp to make the boma, when his work for the day is _ 
over, excepting that he has to collect firewood and water for — 
himself and his mess. Should the sportsman go out to shoot, — 
he is ever ready to follow his master for the sake of the meat. — 
I have known many porters, even at the end of a long, tiring, © 
waterless march, who, after quenching their thirst, have filled 
their calabashes and gone back several miles, of their own ~ 
accord, to help the stragglers into camp. A porter’s wage is © 
10 rupees per month and his posho, one ‘kibaba’ (a measure 
hi 
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